Back in 2018, UKIP began tearing itself apart when party leader Gerard Batten appointed Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, as the party’s ‘grooming’ adviser. Batten, who had only recently become leader, was passionately anti-Islam and wanted to move the party firmly in that direction.

But an association with the likes of Yaxley-Lennon was too much for many members, and there was an exodus, including the resignations of most of its 24 MEPs. Batten was effectively forced out in 2019, and his pro-Robinson anti-Islam party faction was banned by the NEC.

But how times change: with the recent departure in droves of prominent, more traditional pro-Brexit, anti-immigration members, the door has been opened once more to conspiracy-obsessed, pro-Robinson, anti-Islam activists who are now filling key positions. The lure of Robinson’s online following and his ability to fleece his supporters repeatedly is obviously proving a powerful lure for Ben Walker, UKIP’s Chairman and controller of the mysterious trust that controls UKIP.

Ironically, Walker was part of the group who forced Batten out in 2019.

UKIP’s current Leader is Turning Point UK CEO and fanatical Christian Nick Tenconi (above, pretending to lead Tommy Robinson’s July demonstration) who was appointed Deputy Leader by Lois Perry before her sudden resignation during the general election. He was then promoted to Leader by the NEC having been a member of the party for only a few weeks.

After she resigned, Perry claimed that one of the things that forced her out was that there was something “sinister” going on “at the very top of the party” where some people, “wanted to go after quite an extreme viewpoint”. Specifically, she said, they wanted a tie-up with Yaxley-Lennon.

This claim is now being borne out.

The party’s newly apointed ‘Lead Spokesperson’ is another very recent recruit, the far-right anti-Islam clergyman Calvin Robinson – ordained only by the obscure Nordic Catholic Church – who is also a close associate of Laurence Fox. In 2023 he was sacked from GB News after publicly supporting Fox when  he was dismissed for making grossly misogynistic remarks on air.

 And the new Party Director, replacing the recently resigned Pat Mountain, is Lester ‘Jeff’ Taylor, one of the attendees at a meeting (below) with Yaxley-Lennon, ex-UKIP leader Gerard Batten, Laurence Fox, Calvin Robinson and others prior to Yaxley-Lennon’s 27 July ‘Uniting the Kingdom’ march and rally in London. The meeting was to discuss closer ongoing co-operation.

Tenconi, Fox and Batten all appeared alongside Robinson at the rally. Taylor (pictured below with Yaxley-Lennon) had publicly said he would be there, but was not actually spotted on the day.

UKIP’s Lead Spokesman for Wales has, for a while now, been the online Voice of Wales founder Stan Robinson, another admirer of Yaxley-Lennon, whom he welcomed to a UKIP event in Llanelli, Wales, back in March (below) and interviewed on VoW.

Although these are early days, it seems things might be shaping up for at least a partial ‘unite the right’ move which would bring together Yaxley-Lennon/Robinson and some of the more obsessed anti-Islam campaigners who have previously confined themselves to online agitation.

A particularly aggressive Christianity may also be a feature of whatever emerges.

It’s not just the presence in the UKIP leadership of clergyman Calvin Robinson, who appears with tedious regularity in sermonising online discussions with Laurence Fox. Tenconi is a noisy ‘Christ is King’ advocate, and Yaxley-Lennon’s right-hand man, Danny Tommo (Daniel Thomas – the man who broadcast the first incitement to riot after Southport) has recently led aggressive interventions at Speakers Corner (below) where non-Christian speakers have been drowned out by chants of ‘Christ is King’.

in his online posts, Yaxley-Lennon himself is referring increasingly to the need for a return to Christianity.

And only a week ago, Stan Robinson’s Voice of Wales posted that: “…this is a spiritual battle and we need to reclaim Christianity in our communities… Whatever your beliefs, our lifestyle & culture is built on Judeo-Christian values. We need to restore these values and reject anything that doesn’t fall into line with these”.

The one thing getting in the way of this love-in is, of course, money. Both Yaxley-Lennon and Fox enjoy comfortable livings the way things are. Fox has his hedge fund sugar daddy, and Y-L has thousands of mug supporters who will swallow any old tosh he puts out about being persecuted, and throw money at him. Before they commit, both would need some pretty clear assurances that their cosy incomes would not just vanish into the black hole of a Ben Walker-controlled trust.