The UK Independence Party (UKIP) is a far-right party that played a leading role in pushing for the UK to leave the European Union. Founded in 1993 as a single-issue Eurosceptic campaign group, the party began to perform well in local and national elections under the leadership of Nigel Farage. It was UKIP’s increasing popularity in the years leading up to the 2015 general election that prompted then-Prime Minister David Cameron to promise a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU if given another term.

However, the party has since experienced a catastrophic fall in fortunes, with its vote share and income dwindling to the point of oblivion. It faced relentless infighting and ten changes of leadership between the resignation of Nigel Farage in 2016 and the election of leader

Neil Hamilton in 2021. In January 2024, Hamilton stepped down and Lois Perry, a climate-sceptic campaigner, briefly took over. She resigned after 34 days, citing a bad case of pneumonia (and has since re-emerged as director of the British offshoot of the Heritage Foundation, an American climate-denial pressure group).

Nicholas Tenconi, the head of Turning Point UK, is now UKIP’s leader. In a podcast in January 2025, he admitted being sentenced for a fight outside a nightclub. A media report from his 2011 court case mentions Tenconi punched a victim in an apparent drunken argument over a cigarette, which led to the victim being kicked on the ground. 

UKIP entered 24 candidates at the general election, just over half the 43 it put up in 2019. They included Voice of Wales’s co-founder Stan Robinson, who has previously called for a journalist to be castrated with a “rusty blade”. All but one lost their deposits. UKIP also performed badly in the local elections, putting forward just 16 candidates, including the conspiracy theorist Leo Robinson, who has told his followers to prepare for war with “death jab agents”.

While UKIP remains a marginal electoral force, Tenconi has transformed the group into a prolific street movement focussed on Christian nationalism, immigration and combating “the left”. Over 2025, UKIP hosted a “Mass Deportations Tour”, which saw Tenconi rally across several different UK cities. The largest events attracted around 200 people, but Tenconi was often met with small groups of around 70. His speeches promised to “restore Christianity back into the heart of government”, telling his followers that their movement was part of the “ninth crusade”. Online, UKIP posted that “5-10 million must be deported as a minimum” – roughly one in seven of the UK population. 

With his own rallies struggling for the desired attendance, Tenconi began to exploit local anti-migrant protests as captive audiences for his speeches. Tenconi attended local marches in at least 10 different towns, leading chants of “Tell the nation, deportation!”. He promised on multiple occasions to not only deport immigrants, but also “communists” and “socialists”, who would be sent to North Korea. 

Tenconi and his team also took several trips to Calais in 2025, with the aim of preventing asylum seekers from making channel crossings. They “hunted” asylum seekers in camps, chanting “you shall not pass” and shining torches in their faces. Their exposé style footage showed Tenconi encouraging British men to volunteer to join their trips, and to actively create a hostile environment in the UK for asylum seekers by approaching them and questioning their residency. 

Ultimately, UKIP remains a one-man-band with little electoral threat. However, the group’s rhetoric is becoming increasingly extreme, and Tenconi shows a willingness to partake in hands-on activism. As a result, it remains a threat through street-level activity. Furthermore, as Christian nationalism starts to find popularity among the far right more broadly, Tenconi’s ideas may gain more traction.