UKIP leader Gerard Batten | Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images UKIP chief likens jailed far-right leader to Gandhi MEP Gerard Batten says Tommy Robinson is ‘on the right side of a very great cause.’

Gerard Batten, leader of UKIP and a member of the European Parliament, on Monday compared a British far-right leader to the Suffragettes, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.

In a video posted on UKIP's Twitter account, Batten defended Tommy Robinson, founder of the far-right English Defence League who in May was sentenced to 13 months in prison for contempt of court.

Batten said he supported Robinson because he was “on the right side of a very great cause” by “exposing the greatest social scandal in England's history, I believe, which is the systematic, industrialized sexual exploitation of young vulnerable underage girls by certain sections of our population.”

Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was given a suspended sentence in 2017 for committing contempt of court during a rape trial in Canterbury, after he attempted to film the defendants. He was told that he would go to prison if he broke the law again. That happened in May when he was arrested after broadcasting on social media outside the crown court in Leeds where a trial was ongoing. He pleaded guilty and has since become a cause célèbre among the international far-right.

“Did he break the law?” said Batten. “Yes I'm sure he did on occasion, so did the Suffragettes, so did Gahndi, so did Nelson Mandela. They are all now looked at as national and international heroes.”

This week the U.K.'s Court of Appeal will decide whether Robinson should be released from prison immediately. If that happens, according to the Observer, he could be given a key position within a new far-right European foundation called The Movement, being planned by former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

Robinson has been convicted for a number of offences, including football-related violence, trying to travel on false documents and a protest against a decision by football's governing body to stop the England team wearing poppies on their shirts. He has been to prison on multiple occasions including for mortgage fraud.