Nick Tenconi appears to be displaying clear symptoms of a condition called ‘grandiose delusions’ characterised (it says here) by believing, for instance, that one

• Is secretly wealthy, influential, or of extraordinary status despite evidence otherwise.
• Has exceptional powers, knowledge, or abilities.
• Has a special relationship with a famous person, deity, or important organisation.
• Has a unique mission to save the world or change history.

Ponder, for instance, the extraordinary email which he has just sent out to his dwindling gaggle of supporters declaring that UKIP’s five-month “Walk with Jesus” campaign “made history”, achieved “countless victories” and has been “an enormous success.”

Take a moment to think about that.

Last Saturday, Tenconi led roughly two dozen people through central London.

Absurd claims

He is now telling his followers that he has “made history” leading “the only mainstream, explicitly Christian political party to take to the streets armed with the gospel and crosses to give Britain her medicine.”

Absurdly titled “Once again – UKIP moves the needle!” the email claims thirty million socially conservative, patriotic Britons are waiting for leadership, that “Britain lacks the Christian vote,” and that UKIP is now supplying it – one heavily policed shuffle through the capital at a time.

The someone to lead them, Tenconi has decided, is Nick Tenconi.

And it gets more and more preposterous. He writes:

There are thirty million of us in Britain – the Brexit vote – the nationalistic patriotic vote: the socially conservative vote.

Britain lacks the Christian vote.

We are changing that.

We have led the charge.

We received over 330 million hits online when the world saw our Christian march had been cancelled from marching in Whitechapel.

We were mobbed in Liverpool and successfully dragged the liberal, traitorous clergy heading up Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral into the debate around liberal heresies leading the flock astray.

We marched in the heart of Islamism in Britain, Alum Rock, Birmingham and showed the world that there are not any No Go Zones for Christians in Britain.

We have achieved countless victories, every forecasted metric and unprecedented Christain (sic) influence across mainstream media and in the hearts and minds of Christians and supporters of the faith that we will not bend over and lose our homeland.

This is a party that once triggered a national referendum on EU membership. It is now a rump of England flags and crosses, marching from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace waving a thurible.

The email’s account of UKIP’s recent Liverpool visit is particularly vivid. Tenconi and friends were – his word – “mobbed.”

Well, it’s almost true. They would have been well and truly mobbed by the opposition if the police hadn’t thoughtfully kettled them for their own protection

Bigger than Trump

And the Metropolitan Cathedral’s clergy are presumably quaking at having been “dragged into the debate.” Dragged, readers should note, by roughly the same number of people you’d expect at a modest summer barbecue.

The claim of 330 million online hits deserves a moment’s silence. By Tenconi’s own arithmetic, he is the most-watched political leader in human history – ahead of Trump, ahead of the Pope.

His party’s X feed, however, shows the highest-performing Whitechapel-related post reached a much more modest 102,000 views.

Grumpy blokes

The march itself was banned by the Metropolitan Police and relocated to Marble Arch, where sixty supporters – mainly grumpy middle-aged blokes – made their way to Trafalgar Square while tourists walked through them. By May the figure had grown to seventy-five. Then it dropped to two dozen.

Tenconi describes this trajectory as “countless victories” and hitting “every forecasted metric.”

The email ends with a battle cry. UKIP will “fight against the Islamic caliphate, socialism and against Marxism until we have power,” and will reverse “the wickedness and betrayal of the British people by reinstating Christ and Christian justice back into the heart of government.”

Shedding members

Power. From a party that cannot get a party logo past the Electoral Commission.

From a movement that shed members between January and May, then shed most of those who were left.

From a man who has driven UKIP from Eurosceptic insurgency to obscure Christian nationalist street theatre.

“Our army is building,” writes Tenconi.

It lost half its soldiers between spring and last Saturday.

At this rate, by Christmas it’ll be Nick and a thermos.