Civil rights campaigner Jesse Jackson delivered a message of encouragement to Occupy London protesters this week.

The 70-year-old former aide to Martin Luther King told protesters camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral to “stand up and fight back”.

He drew cheers from the 200-strong crowd as he suggested that Jesus would have appreciated their cause.

"There is something powerful about this demonstration here at St Paul's. You represent Jesus standing outside the temple," said the church minister.

"Jesus was an Occupier, born under a death warrant, a Jew by religion, born in poverty under Roman occupation.”

Jackson was invited to speak by protesters who have been camped outside the Sir Christopher Wren masterpiece in central London since October 15.

He likened the Occupy movement to the struggles of Gandhi in India, Martin Luther King in the US and Nelson Mandela in South Africa.

"They are all exalted now but they were rejected as occupiers, as protesters, as radicals, called terrorists by governments," he said.

"The occupiers' cause is a just cause, a moral cause. They should not be dismissed but heard – listen to their message.

"Banks got bailed out, people got left out. Protesters are criminalised but not a single banker has gone to jail for their crimes, the corruption and greed which drove the global economy to the brink of collapse."