The party that has died more deaths than any other in modern British politics is seeking resurrection, and has chosen, with characteristic subtlety, to do so by marching through central London in the name of Jesus Christ.

On 23 May, UKIP will take to the streets of the capital again for what it is billing as a “Walk with Jesus”, a march from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The faithful are instructed to muster at noon and leave at one.

It would be easy to laugh. UKIP in its present form is a husk: a fringe outfit with few members, no council or parlaimentary seats, no influence, and no obvious future, reduced to fighting for pavement space with wooden crosses, England flags and the occasioal thurible.

Its most recent march in London drew around 75 people. Leader Nick Tenconi has led it on a comical ideological journey from Eurosceptic insurgency to Christian nationalist performance politics.

And in the process has driven it into the ground. Attendance at his marches continues to decline steadily; where once UKIP forced a Brexit referendum, it has been reduced to a paltry street army of several dozen.

Holy lance

In January, the party applied to the Electoral Commission to replace its familiar purple and yellow pound-sign logo with a black and white Templar cross incorporating a spear, which the party explained represented the Holy Lance, the Spear of Destiny that pierced Christ’s side at the Crucifixion.

The Commission rejected it as offensive and likely to mislead voters. It was in fact the second rejection in as many months: the original November submission had featured a crusader’s sword crossing the cross and was thrown out on the same grounds.

Religious identity

And now here it is, marching under the banner of Marian devotion, still insisting on its own relevance. UKIP is not alone on the far right in Britain, and elsewhere, in wrapping its politics in the robes of religious identity.

But seventy-five people carrying wooden crosses through central London is not a movement.

It’s a memorial service.