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Nick Tenconi

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Nick Tenconi
Tenconi in 2025
Leader of the UK Independence Party
Incumbent
Assumed office
5 February 2025
Interim: 16 June 2024 – 5 February 2025
Honourary presidentNeil Hamilton
Preceded byLois Perry
COO of Turning Point UK
Incumbent
Assumed office
2021
PresidentMarco Longhi
Preceded byJack Ross
Deputy Leader of the UK Independence Party
In office
May 2024 – 16 June 2024
LeaderLois Perry
Preceded byRebecca Jane
Succeeded byVacant
Personal details
PartyUK Independence Party (Since 2024)
Other political
affiliations
Turning Point UK (Since 2021)

Nick Marcel Tenconi is a British politician, personal trainer and political activist who has been the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) since February 2025, having served as acting leader from June 2024. He is also the chief operating officer of the right-wing pressure group Turning Point UK (TPUK).

Biography

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Tenconi was born into a wealthy family from Eastbourne, East Sussex. He went to a private junior school, followed by a state secondary school. He went on to work in sales, then launched his own personal training business, Tenco Training, in 2013 in Reading.[1][2][3] In 2023, Tenconi received publicity after driving to Ukraine to deliver aid.[4]

His political career began when he joined the right-wing group Turning Point UK, eventually becoming Chief operating officer (COO).[1] As the COO of Turning Point UK, in 2023 he was involved in organising street demonstrations in Honor Oak, Lewisham at a pub which had held drag queen storytime events. The repeated protests by TPUK saw hundreds of counter protesters outnumbering and drowning out TPUK's activists.[5][6][7] 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".[8] The LGBT news website Pink News wrote that Tenconi "uses his Twitter platform to espouse hateful anti-trans views".[9]

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".[10]

UKIP

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Nick Tenconi in Lincoln, UK

Tenconi was elected as deputy leader of UKIP in May 2024, after having only recently joined, and later took on the role as acting leader after Lois Perry quit and endorsed Reform UK during the July 2024 general election.[11] According to Searchlight, Perry later said that she quit because "there was something 'sinister' going on, which she had not foreseen, certain elements in the leadership, whom she did not name, 'wanted to go after quite an extreme viewpoint'". However, she said that Tenconi was not part of this extremist tendency.[12]

According to Searchlight, after Tenconi took leadership of UKIP, he attempted to move closer to controversial activist Tommy Robinson, appointed anti-Islam activist and preacher Calvin Robinson as its lead spokesperson,[13] and entered into talks with anti-Muslim influencer Katie Hopkins.[14]

Tenconi was at a protest in London on 1 August 2024 which turned violent.[15] He was seen with a loudspeaker at anti-migrant protests in Plymouth in August 2024,[16] and at other anti-migrant protests in Aldershot and Reading leading chants of 'invaders out'.[17] According to Searchlight, Tenconi alleged that a man who killed three young girls in Southport, which sparked the anti-migrant riots, was "under orders".[18]

On 5 February 2025, UKIP announced that Tenconi had been ratified as party leader.[19][20] Since becoming leader, Tenconi has made Christian identity politics an important part of UKIP's campaign.[1]

On 8 August 2025, Tenconi published a video depicting himself in attendance of an anti-migrant demonstration in Portsmouth. In this video, he is seen performing a gesture that some, including Hope not Hate, have compared to a Nazi salute. The gesture was made while dancing to the 1999 Italian song L'amour toujours, which in 2024 was banned from being played at Munich's Oktoberfest by the organisers after it became an anthem of the German far-right.[1] Both Tenconi and Turning Point UK denied the accusations, stating they were a "ridiculous smear," with Tenconi reiterating that "[the] ideology at UKIP is conservatism," with the party standing "wholeheartedly against the far-right and Nazism".[21]

Views

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Tenconi has described himself as a "defender of masculinity, Christianity, and conservative values" and has expressed his opposition to what he describes as "satanic woke culture".[2] Based on this, some people have described him and UKIP as Christian nationalist.[22][23] He describes himself as a "huge fan" of Kyle Rittenhouse, a young American who shot and killed two people in self-defence[24] at a Black Lives Matter protest.[25][26] Tenconi has said that liberalism "breeds degeneracy", and that British people should "return" to traditional values. He has also been outspoken about what he perceives as an immigration "problem" in Britain, and said that British people need to "outbreed the invaders".[1]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Domb, Arielle (24 October 2025). "Who is Nick Tenconi? The Ukip leader whose party was banned from holding Tower Hamlets protest". The Evening Standard. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
  2. 1 2 Childs, Simon (20 June 2024). "Inside the Tory-Linked Far-Right Group Organising Against the Left". Novara Media. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  3. ↑ "Nicholas TENCONI personal appointments". Companies House. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  4. ↑ "Reading personal trainer goes to Ukrainian front line to deliver essentials". BBC News. 17 February 2023. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  5. ↑ "Drag queen story time: Hundreds counter-protest right-wing group". East London Lines. 28 February 2023. Retrieved 10 August 2025.
  6. ↑ Saville, Alice (30 June 2023). "How London's drag scene turned into a battleground". Time Out. Retrieved 10 August 2025.
  7. ↑ "Lawrence Fox and fash friends humiliated in Dulwich". freedomnews.org.uk. 15 March 2023.
  8. ↑ O'Thomson, Jess. "Exclusive: The Truth About the Far Right Attack on Honor Oak". Trans Safety Network. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  9. ↑ Billson, Chantelle (28 May 2023). "Pitiful anti-drag turnout seen off with 'joyful' LGBTQ+ street party". Pink News. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  10. ↑ Lowles, Nick (2024). "STATE OF HATE 2024, PESSIMISM, DECLINE AND THE RISING RADICAL RIGHT" (PDF). hopenothate.org.uk.
  11. ↑ "UKIP in disarray as members "leave in droves"". Searchlight. 22 June 2024. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
    - "Knives being sharpened after extreme right election disaster". Searchlight. 7 July 2024. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  12. ↑ "'Delusional' ex-UKIP Leader 'tells all'". Searchlight. 26 July 2024. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  13. ↑ "UKIP opens door to Yaxley-Lennon and anti-Islam, Christian crusade". Searchlight. 14 August 2024. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
  14. ↑ "UKIP – an onward march to the gutter and oblivion". Searchlight. 17 July 2024. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
  15. ↑ Quinn, Ben (7 August 2024). "Actors, activists and conspiracy theorists – a guide to the British far right". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  16. ↑ Davies, Caroline (6 August 2024). "'Thuggery on tour': Plymouth takes stock after day of far-right violence". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  17. ↑ "UKIP leader responds to criticism over presence at Aldershot protests". Farnham Herald. 14 August 2024.
    - "Personal trainer leads 'offensive' chants at clashing pro and anti migrant protest". Reading Chronicle. 9 August 2024. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  18. ↑ "After the Southport killings – who is responsible for the racist riots?". Searchlight. 1 August 2024. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  19. ↑ "UKIP - Facebook". Facebook. 5 February 2025. Retrieved 11 February 2025.
  20. ↑ "UKIP appoints new leader – and the romance with 'Tommy Robinson' goes on". Searchlight. 8 February 2025. Retrieved 11 February 2025.
  21. ↑ Paine, Toby (11 August 2025). "'Nothing Nazi-esque': UKIP leader defends gesture at Portsmouth protest". The News. Retrieved 24 August 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  22. ↑ Mahmood, Shabana (20 October 2025). "Tower Hamlets Labour urges Home Secretary to act against UKIP's far-right march in Whitechapel". Tower Hamlets Labour. Retrieved 14 November 2025.
  23. ↑ "UKIP's Extremist Manifesto: Deportations, Informant Bounties, and the Erasure of Trans Lives". Tower Hamlets Labour. 24 October 2025. Retrieved 14 November 2025.
  24. ↑ Campbell, Aiden L. (10 December 2021). "The Letter of the Law is Not Always Just: The Trial of Kyle Rittenhouse". StAndrews Law Review. Retrieved 7 July 2026.
  25. ↑ Billson, Chantelle (18 April 2023). "Tories urged to cut ties with 'hate-filled' right-wing group Turning Point UK". PinkNews. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
  26. ↑ Boedy, Matthew (15 May 2023). "Turning Point Efforts to Export Drag Queen Attacks and 'Take Back Universities' Marred by Fringe Associations and Farcical Missteps". Religion Dispatches. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
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