Sajjad Karim MEP has urged the European Parliament’s President to remove an Islamophobic poster being used as part of its 2019 election campaign on migration.

Mr Karim - who is the Vice President of the Parliament’s Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup - said in Strasbourg during the opening of the plenary session.

“Last week, as we were launching on the platform of the Anti-Racism Intergroup within the European Parliament in Brussels a toolkit that has been designed to help Member States avoid any Islamophobic content in their messaging, outside the European Parliament appeared a huge Islamophobic poster officially sponsored on behalf of the Parliament giving a message about immigration.

“Mr President, that poster is against the very toolkit that we were raising in every way possible. I ask and request that it be removed with immediate effect.”

President Tajani responded, “We will take up your comments and see if our rules have indeed been infringed upon.”

The poster - which shows ordinary Muslims next to the words ‘Because we need to work together to manage migration’ - is part of the Parliament's £29m communications campaign for the 2019 European Elections, with it being part of its main campaign messages installed at the building's entrance in Brussels.

The British MEP had already written to President Antonio Tajani last week, where he described the poster as equating ‘managing migration' with limiting the entry of Muslims into Europe and adding to the already confused debate on immigration and asylum by pandering to the very stereotypes the extremists wish to establish.

Tajani is yet to respond to the letter.