The UKIP plan to run Tommy Robinson for Parliament – as more Robinson supporters pack party NEC

NOTE: This article was published on 22 December 2024The growing unity between Tommy Robinson’s racist ‘cultural movement’ and UKIP proceeds apace with a full-fledged embrace only held up by Robinson’s incarceration. UKIP ‘leader’ Nick Tenconi has now announced that the party wants to run Robinson as a UKIP candidate in the next general election. And,…

NOTE: This article was published on 22 December 2024
UIP leader Nick Tenconi appearing on Dan Wootton's online radio show
UIP leader Nick Tenconi appearing on Dan Wootton’s online radio show

The growing unity between Tommy Robinson’s racist ‘cultural movement’ and UKIP proceeds apace with a full-fledged embrace only held up by Robinson’s incarceration. UKIP ‘leader’ Nick Tenconi has now announced that the party wants to run Robinson as a UKIP candidate in the next general election. And, meanwhile, two more prominent Robinson supporters have been appointed to the UKIP NEC.

‘Stand up guy’

Interviewed recently on the online radio show of disgraced former GB News host Dan Wootton, Tenconi said that:

“We’ve extended the hand to Tommy Robinson because we want him to join the party, and we want him to stand in the area that we decide is best for him or that he chooses…and in 2029 get him elected and get him in the House of Commons.

“He’s a stand-up guy and I’ve got a lot of time for that… The revolution’s begun, you can’t stop that.

“We are going to put Christianity back in the heart of government. We are going to right the wrongs of so many decades – since roughly the second world war but it’s actually since the Enlightenment period”.

Katie Hopkins as candidate

Tenconi said that UKIP also hopes to run online far right agitator Katie Hopkins (below, with Tommy Robinson) as a Parliamentary candidate.

Tommy Robinson with online agitator Katie Hopkins
Tommy Robinson with online agitator Katie Hopkins

“These are accomplished, sensible, hardworking decent individuals who have dedicated 15 plus years from their mid-early 20s and in the case of Tommy now, it’s cost him his liberty. I mean…what’s not to like?”

Robinson, the erstwhile atheist, has found God and is taking religious instruction inside.

Meanwhile, Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is also preparing himself to be the earthly representative of the party that pledges to ‘put Christianity back into the heart of government’. Richard Inman, Robinson’s right-hand man and organiser, revealed last week after visiting Robinson in prison that the erstwhile atheist has found God and is taking religious instruction inside.

“(Tommy) has been doing a Bible Study with a Pentecostal Pastor, that’s taken him under his wing”.

This, for Robinson, would open up a whole new area of potential supporters to subject to his interminable pleas for cash.

Linking up with UKIP

In October, just before he was jailed, Robinson himself trailed the idea of linking up with UKIP. Interviewed in Spain, on the online channel of right-wing commentator Mahyar Tousi, he was asked what he thought of UKIP and Nick Tenconi. He said:

“UKIP are far stronger than any other political party. I believe that Nick has shown great leadership…

“You need a people’s party that is not going to kick the working class and not going to deem them as racist and far right which Nigel Farage has done multiple times.

“I like UKIP. I actually messaged the lads…I messaged Nick, and I messaged Ben Walker, to have a discussion with them…there does need to be a political party that pushes them so maybe UKIP’s that solution.

“I hope to meet the boys when I get back if I’m not in jail.”

Robinson acolytes

Since then, there has been a systematic colonisation of the UKIP NEC by Robinson acolytes and supporters, all engineered by Nick Tenconi, and none actually elected. Richard Inman, Robinson’s main man, was the most notable but also inserted was UKIP Wales Spokesman Stan Robinson (no relation) who is close to Yaxley-Lennon and spent time with him when he was on the run in Spain.

More recently they have been joined by Rikki Doolan, now UKIP’s Culture and Arts Spokesman, and Dean Neil who will be the party’s spokesman on (wait for it…) Heritage and the Noble Principles of the British People.

Caption needed for this photo
Dean Neil, appointed as UKIP’s ‘Heritage and Noble Principles of the British People’ spokesman

We will be profiling both in due course, but for the moment suffice to say that both are close to Tommy Robinson and will significantly increase his influence on the leadership of the party: Doolan is a third-rate evangelical rock singer who performs at Robinson’s Uniting the Kingdom rallies, and Neil, a former professional goalkeeper, has frequently attended events organised by Robinson, with whom he has been associated over many years.

What all this means, of course, is that without any consultation with its (shrinking) established membership, which rejected an association with Robinson back in 2019, UKIP is being recast as a Christian far-right political vehicle for Robinson when he emerges from jail, and will be available to him as an experienced election machine should he decide to run for Parliament in the next election.


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