A UKIP MEP quit the party today over its appointment of far-right thug “Tommy Robinson” as an adviser.

Patrick O’Flynn resigned and announced that he would instead be defecting to the pro-Brexit Social Democratic Party (SDP).

The former Daily Express political editor, previously Ukip’s economics spokesman, published a statement accusing Ukip leader Gerard Batten of having an apparent and growing fixation with “Mr Robinson.”

“Mr Robinson,” whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was the founder of the far-right English Defence League, though he now styles himself as an independent journalist.

Mr O’Flynn welcomed the decision of Ukip's national executive to delay Mr Yaxley-Lennon’s application for party membership but expressed concern at his appointment as an adviser on “grooming gangs.”

He went on to criticise Ukip for organising a pro-Brexit demonstration alongside Mr Yaxley-Lennon, saying: “Without any mandate from the membership or the party’s elected ruling body to go down this path, Gerard [Batten] is transforming what Ukip stands for and offers to voters.”

Mr Batten, who has described Islam as a “death cult” and advocates Muslim-only jails, is widely perceived to be moving Ukip in the direction of fascism.

Anti-racist campaigning group Stand Up to Racism warned that Ukip is rushing “to the far right at a faster pace as they get behind the fascist Tommy Robinson” and urged anti-fascists to attend the London counterprotest against him on December 9.

Ukip’s lurch to the right has prompted two other MEPs, William Dartmouth and Bill Etheridge, to leave the party.