Nick Tenconi | |
---|---|
Leader of the UK Independence Party | |
Interim 16 June 2024 | |
Preceded by | Lois Perry |
Deputy leader of the UK Independence Party | |
In office May 2024 –16 June 2024 | |
Leader | Lois Perry |
Preceded by | Rebecca Jane |
Succeeded by | Vacant |
Personal details | |
Born | March 1984 (age 40) |
Political party | UKIP |
Nick Marcel Tenconi (born March 1984) is a British politician,personal trainer and activist who has been the interim leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) since June 2024. He is also a leader of the right-wing pressure group Turning Point UK.
Tenconi is a self-employed personal trainer who runs a lifestyle coaching business from a gym in Reading. [1] [2] In 2023,Tenconi received publicity after driving to Ukraine to deliver aid. [3]
As the COO of Turning Point UK,he has been involved in organising street demonstrations in London's Honor Oak at a pub which had previously held drag queen storytime events,and in counter protests against Palestine solidarity marches in London. The repeated protests by TPUK saw hundreds of counter protesters outnumbering and drowning out TPUK's activists. [4] According to Trans Safety Network,Tenconi "was enthusiastically involved in the street violence,personally offering to fight individuals,and physically moving towards and grabbing at counter-protesters. This is evidence of a clear turn by TPUK towards unapologetic street fascism." [5] The LGBT news website Pink News wrote that Tenconi "uses his Twitter platform to espouse hateful anti-trans views." [6]
A feature on the radical right published by Hope not Hate said of Turning Point UK that "following the addition of COO Nick Tenconi to the group,it appears to be in the process of reinventing itself as a street-protest organiser,taking a key role in the demonstrations against drag queen storytelling sessions throughout the year." [7]
He was elected as deputy leader of UKIP in May 2024,after having only recently joined,and has been acting leader since Lois Perry quit and endorsed Nigel Farage's Reform UK during the 2024 general election. [8] Perry later claimed that she quit because "there was something 'sinister' going on,which she had not foreseen:certain elements in the leadership,whom she does not name,'wanted to go after quite an extreme viewpoint'". However,she said that Tenconi was not part of this extremist tendency. [9]
After Tenconi took leadership of UKIP,it attempted to move closer to controversial journalist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (known as Tommy Robinson),appointed far-right anti-Islam activist Calvin Robinson as its lead spokesperson, [10] and entered into talks with anti-Muslim influencer Katie Hopkins. [11]
Tenconi was also seen with a loudspeaker at anti-migrant protests in Plymouth in August 2024, [12] and at other anti-migrant protests in Aldershot and Reading leading chants of 'invaders out'. [13] Tenconi alleged that a man who killed three young girls in Southport,which sparked the anti-migrant riots,was "under orders". [14] Tenconi was also at a protest in Trafalgar Square on 1 August which turned violent. [15]
Tenconi has described himself as a "defender of masculinity,Christianity,and conservative values" and has expressed his opposition to "satanic woke culture". [1] He describes himself as a “huge fan”of Kyle Rittenhouse,the young American who shot dead two rioters at a Black Lives Matter protest in self-defence. [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]
The UK Independence Party is a Eurosceptic,right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s,when it gained two members of parliament and was the largest party representing the UK in the European Parliament. The party is currently led by Nick Tenconi.
Nigel Paul Farage is a British politician and broadcaster who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Clacton and Leader of Reform UK since 2024,having previously been its leader from 2019 to 2021. He was the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016. Farage served as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 1999 until the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) in 2020.
Far-right politics are a recurring phenomenon in the United Kingdom since the early 20th century,with the formation of Nazi,fascist,antisemitic,and Islamophobic movements. One of the earliest examples of fascism in the UK can be found as early as 1923 with the formation of British Fascisti by Rotha Lintorn-Orman. It went on to acquire more explicitly racial connotations,being dominated in the 1960s and 1970s by self-proclaimed white nationalist organisations that opposed non-white and Asian immigration. The idea stems from belief of white supremacy,the belief that white people are superior to all other races and should therefore dominate society. Examples of such groups in the UK are the National Front (NF),the British Movement (BM) and British National Party (BNP),or the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Since the 1980s,the term has mainly been used to describe those groups,such as the English Defence League,who express the wish to preserve what they perceive to be British culture,and those who campaign against the presence of non-indigenous ethnic minorities.
Alexander Alan Craig is a British politician and community worker who previously served as leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance (CPA) from 2004 to 2012. He stood as a candidate for Mayor of London in 2008 and was a councillor in Newham for eight years. He defected to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in 2014,where he served as UKIP's spokesperson for families and children from 2018 to around 2019.
The English Defence League (EDL) was a far-right,Islamophobic organisation active in England from 2009 until the mid-late 2010s. A social movement and pressure group that employed street demonstrations as its main tactic,the EDL presented itself as a single-issue movement opposed to Islamism and Islamic extremism,although its rhetoric and actions targeted Islam and Muslims more widely.
Hope not Hate is an advocacy group based in the United Kingdom which campaigns against racism and fascism. It has also mounted campaigns against Islamic extremism and antisemitism. It is self-described as a "non-partisan,non-sectarian organisation." The group was founded in 2004 by Nick Lowles,a former editor of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. It is backed by various politicians and celebrities,and it has also been backed by several trade unions.
Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon,better known as Tommy Robinson,is a British anti-Islam campaigner and one of the UK's most prominent far-right activists. Since 28 October 2024,he has been serving an 18-month prison sentence for contempt of court.
Britain First is a far-right,British fascist and neo-fascist political party and hate group formed in 2011 by former members of the British National Party (BNP). The group was founded by Jim Dowson,an anti-abortion and far-right campaigner. The organisation's co-leaders are former BNP councillor Paul Golding and Ashlea Simon. Jayda Fransen formerly served as its deputy leader.
Paul Martin Laurence Weston is a British far-right politician and blogger.
Anne Marie Dorothy Waters is a far-right politician and activist in the United Kingdom. She founded and led the anti-Islam party For Britain until its dissolution in 2022. She is also the director of Sharia Watch UK,an organisation launched in April 2014. In January 2016,Waters launched Pegida UK in conjunction with activist Tommy Robinson and far-right politician Paul Weston.
Carl Benjamin,also known by his online pseudonym Sargon of Akkad,is a British right-wing YouTuber and political commentator. A former member of the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP),he was one of its unsuccessful candidates for the South West England constituency at the 2019 European Parliament election.
Jayda Kaleigh Fransen is a British politician and activist who was convicted of religiously aggravated harassment in 2018. Formerly involved with the English Defence League (EDL),she left due to its association with drink-fuelled violence. She then joined the far-right fascist political organisation Britain First. With Paul Golding as leader,Fransen was deputy leader from 2014 to 2019. She became acting leader for six months from December 2016 to June 2017,while Golding was imprisoned in December 2016.
The London Forum is a loose organisation of far-right individuals based in London but with regional headquarters across the United Kingdom. Emerging in 2011 out of a split within the British far-right,meetings were regularly held by the organisation. These have been met with significant protests by anti-fascist activists and have been infiltrated by journalists,most notably a 2015 investigation of the group by The Mail on Sunday with the help of Searchlight,an anti-fascist magazine that focuses on the British far-right.
The Traditional Britain Group (TBG) is a British far-right pressure group that describes itself as traditionalist conservative and "home to the disillusioned patriot". It was founded in 2001 by Gregory Lauder-Frost,with Merlin Hanbury-Tracy,7th Baron Sudeley as its president. Sudeley was still in office when he died in 2022.
Turning Point UK (TPUK) is a British offshoot of the American student pressure group Turning Point USA. The UK group was set up to promote right-wing politics in UK schools,colleges and universities,with the stated aim of countering what Turning Point UK alleges are the left-wing politics of UK educational institutions. The close similarity of Turning Point UK's rhetoric and target demographic to that of Generation Identity,a continental European group with racist and Islamophobic intentions,has been noted by scholars of hate studies and the far-right.
Patriotic Alternative (PA) is a British far-right,fascist,neo-Nazi and white nationalist hate group which states that it has active branches nationwide. The Times described it in 2023 as "Britain's largest far-right white supremacist movement". Its stance has been variously described as Islamophobic,fascist and racist.
The Scottish Family Party (SFP) is a socially conservative political party in Scotland. It was formed in 2017 and is led by Richard Lucas,a registered Maths,Physics and Computing teacher and a former UKIP member.
Calvin John Robinson is a British continuing Anglican cleric,right-wing political commentator,writer and broadcaster. Since 2024,he has been a priest in the Anglican Catholic Church;from 2022 until his priestly ordination in 2023,he had been a deacon in the Free Church of England,a conservative Anglican realignment denomination,then until 2024 a priest in the Nordic Catholic Church,a conservative Old Catholic denomination of high church Lutheran patrimony.
Bookmarks is Britain's largest socialist bookshop. It was founded in 1973 by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and is based in Bloomsbury,London. The company has published books since 1979 and is the official bookseller for the Trades Union Congress.
Nationalist Social Club-131,or NSC-131,is an American neo-Nazi organization;the numbers 131 are an alphanumeric code for "Anti-Communist Action". It was founded in 2019 in eastern Massachusetts by Chris Hood,who had previously tried other neo-fascist groups such as Patriot Front,the Proud Boys,and the Base. The group first attracted the attention of anti-extremism researchers during the George Floyd protests in mid-2020,which NSC-131 members hoped to leverage to increase their recruiting. Along with Patriot Front,NSC-131 is one of the most active white nationalist groups in New England as of 2022.