Ukip is to hold a leadership contest after the European Parliament elections.

Party leader Gerard Batten confirmed there would be an election following the 23 May Euro poll after he attacked reports he planned to stand down on 2 June.

The anti-immigration MEP, who took over as interim leader in April last year after a tumultuous period since the departure of Nigel Farage, tweeted: “The usual lies. I was elected unopposed in mid-April for a 12-month term. The NEC asked me to extend the term to get beyond the local & Euro elections.

“There will therefore be a leadership election after the Euros. I will decide then if I am running again.”

When Mr Batten took over the top job, Ukip installed him unopposed to avoid a costly leadership contest.

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The party staved off the threat of bankruptcy after raising almost £300,000 in donations to cover legal fees.

If Mr Batten does not stand again, the new leader will be the eighth since 2010.

Nigel Farage quit after six years as leader in September 2016, returning for a brief spell the following month.

A Ukip spokesman said: “Mr Batten is fulfilling a promise to step down and call a leadership election approximately one year after becoming full party leader.”

Mr Batten has drawn controversy for appointing former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson as an adviser on grooming gangs and prisons, and has faced infighting over his shift towards the far right.

He has also come under fire for standing by European elections candidate Carl Benjamin, who posted a social media message saying he “wouldn’t even rape” Labour MP Jess Phillips.

Mr Benjamin then released a video suggesting he might rape the Birmingham Yardley MP, saying “with enough pressure I might cave”.

Mr Batten defended the tweet by saying it was “satire”.

“I don’t know the exact context of that and I certainly don’t condone any remarks like that, but he is not a bad person as he’s being portrayed,” he said.

“He is a proponent of free speech. The context that he said it was satire against the people he was saying it about. He wasn’t actually making a literal statement.”

He has also drawn fire for calling Islam “a death cult“.

Ukip won 24 seats at the 2014 European Parliament elections, but has seen a stream of MEPs quit its ranks since, and now faces stiff competition from former leader Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party.

The party lost 145 seats in last week’s local elections.

Mr Farage has criticised his old group as now being linked to “extremism, violence, criminal records and thuggery” and has left.

Mr Batten has dismissed the Brexit Party as a “Tory-lite” ego trip.