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IMPACT UPDATE: Byline Times investigations have forced the suspension of two Conservative local election candidates after revealing their far-right extremist posts, and our investigation into Reform’s connections to THE COMPANY JCB cited by the Guardian. 05/05/26
Reform UK has repeatedly refused to provide any explanation to Byline Times for why its leader, Nigel Farage, met and posed for a photograph with a group of far-right activists including a man who went on to be criminally convicted for violently storming an anti-racism meeting at a church – an offence that took place two weeks before the picture was taken.
Byline Times first reported on the photograph, which was taken in mid-December 2024, last January.
Having been posted on Facebook by one of the individuals in the picture on 18 December 2024 with the caption “just been up to meet Nigel for a Christmas drink”, Reform did not reply to multiple requests for comment when Byline Times asked it to explain why Farage had met a group of people associated with racist activism.
This week, Reform again ignored multiple requests for comment from this newspaper, after it learned that one of the men in the photograph, Stephen Lynch, was convicted of assault by beating at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court last month after the storming of the Holy Trinity Church in Aldershot by a far-right group on the evening of 5 December 2024.
Jeremy ‘Jez’ Stocking, who was also present at the church attack but was neither charged nor convicted, was also pictured with Farage in the photograph. He is an election agent for Reform in this week’s local elections in Rushmoor, Hampshire.
The location of the photograph remains unconfirmed, but its private office setting suggests Farage did not come across the group merely in passing or by chance. The social media post of the picture itself claims that the individuals were there to meet Farage “for a Christmas drink”.
Farage has previously sought to publicly distance himself from Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’) and other extreme elements on the populist right, claiming last year that he had “done more to drive the far-right out of British politics than anybody else alive”.
But a Labour Party spokesperson told Byline Times that Farage “time and time again, finds himself in the company of extreme voices” and that “far from distancing themselves in the way Farage has claimed, Reform has actively incubated these individuals, many of whom have expressed vile views or behaved egregiously”.
“This is just the latest – in a string of examples – that show Farage and Reform stand for division and are not on the side of working people,” they added.
A spokesperson for Rushmoor Stand Up to Racism – the campaign group which had organised the anti-racism meeting at the church which was targeted – told Byline Times that “the way this far-right group stormed inside, threatened, and even assaulted people while filming for viral content was beyond anyone’s worst imagination”.
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‘You Are Heretics’
The incident at the church in Aldershot unfolded at approximately 7pm on 5 December 2024, when a group of activists associated with the local anti-migrant campaign, Rushmoor People First – together with figures from UKIP and the far-right group Turning Point UK – interrupted an anti-racism meeting organised by Stand Up to Racism and Blackwater Valley Friends of the Earth.
Four members of the group that stormed the meeting were convicted of assault by beating following a trial this April, having denied the charges.
In footage posted by the UKIP “PBTV” YouTube channel on 6 January 2025, UKIP Leader Nick Tenconi – who is also described online as the chief operating officer of Turning Point UK – can be seen leading the group inside the church. He was not charged with any offence.
The film – titled “Nick Tenconi UKIP gives it back to a far-left meeting at Holy Trinity Church in Aldershot” – shows Tenconi shouting “this is what Christian courage looks like” inside the building.
He goes on to call those present “communists” and “Islamists” who are “here with malintent on the British public”, and claims that “the communists want to see Britain burn and the Islamists are here to spread the caliphate”.
“They are using the house of God to conceal their malignant schemes on Britain,” he says in the film, adding that “the far-left are not welcome in Britain and they are not welcome in Rushmoor”.
At one point, Tenconi turns to the vicar and says: “Reverend… stop behaving like this. Take your boys away.” Addressing meeting attendees directly, he says: “You are heretics, shut up and get out.”
One member of the group present, who faced no criminal proceedings, Jez Stocking, is understood to have attended some of the court hearings in the public gallery. Around the time Byline Times first reported the existence of the photograph with Farage in January 2025, Stocking was described as Reform’s campaign manager for Aldershot in a Facebook post from the party’s Hampshire branch.
However, after this newspaper first approached Reform with a request for comment for this story, the local Reform branch posted a statement online stating that Stocking “is not the Reform UK Aldershot campaign manager” and that, instead, “he is acting as an election agent for one candidate”.
“We also want to be clear: Reform UK Aldershot does not endorse racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, threats, vigilantism, unlawful violence, or personal abuse,” the statement added.
Gillian Bailey, chair of Reform’s Aldershot branch, told Byline Times: “Reform UK Aldershot is focused on the local election campaign and on the issues that matter to residents in Aldershot, Farnborough and across Rushmoor and Hart. For clarity, Jeremy Stocking is not, and has never been, the campaign manager for Reform UK Aldershot.”
In a video posted to social media in March, Stocking called Nick Tenconi a “very good friend of mine” and warned followers to “not trust the police”. In a Facebook post this month, as admin of the Rushmoor People First group page, he is seen leafletting for Reform.
Stephen Lynch, 63, of Aldershot, was fined £1,000 plus victim surcharge, compensation, and prosecution costs for his part in the incident.
Jack Ross, 28, of Waterlooville – listed on Turning Point UK’s website as a senior figure and describing himself as its CEO on X – received a six-month conditional discharge, plus victim surcharge, and prosecution costs.
Ross is a prominent anti-migration figure and is listed as a research fellow for the Bow Group, which brands itself the world’s oldest conservative think tank. It is understood that he filmed the footage that was posted to the UKIP-branded YouTube channel.
Stephen Kemsley, 65, of Aldershot, was fined £750 plus victim surcharge and prosecution costs.
Leslie Miles, 60, of Cranleigh, was fined £600 plus victim surcharge, compensation and prosecution costs.
A fifth man was charged but found not guilty after the judge accepted a no-case-to-answer application during the trial.
Asked if any other individuals were investigated in connection with the incident, a Hampshire Police spokesperson said that an additional offence of public nuisance was considered and that five people allegedly involved in the incident voluntarily attended a police station to be interviewed under caution. There was deemed to be insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of a successful prosecution on that count.
The Crown Prosecution Service made a submission for the sentence of each defendant to be within ‘category B2’ – concerning serious violence or damage – with “aggravating features”. In this case, these included that those convicted had the intention of disrupting the meeting and that the meeting was in a church.
Nick Tenconi, Jack Ross, the other individuals convicted, Turning Point UK, and the Bow Group did not respond to requests for comment.
‘Restoring’ Christian Values
A spokesperson for the local Rushmoor Stand Up to Racism group told Byline Times that “all of us who turned up for a community meeting to tackle racism that night will welcome these convictions”.
They said that, while leaving the premises, the far-right group had “threatened to ‘come back every time you do one’” and that “people were really shaken, the church staff, meeting organisers, and the public who must have been horrified”.
“The ‘church raiders’ wanted to stop us exercising any democratic rights to meet and have a voice they might disagree with,” the spokesperson added. “It is to everyone’s credit that, once Tenconi and [the] 20 men were finally expelled, we held our meeting as planned.
“We can’t afford to be bullied into silence, or divided by lies and hate. Racism is a blight on everyone’s safety and lives, and far-right activists exposed their thuggery plainly that night. But last month we marched with half a million ordinary people on the Together demonstration, showing that anti-racists are a majority in Britain.
“Rushmoor is a diverse and welcoming place and we will keep organising against anti-migrant lies, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and all forms of racism.”
The national Stand Up to Racism group told this newspaper that the rise of far-right populism “is not an abstract concept in Aldershot”.
“The ideology of nationalism and mass deportations has, for a number of years, been promoted locally by voices on the far-right, such as Nick Tenconi, who has been welcomed by local anti-immigration group Rushmoor People First,” it said in a statement.
“Witnesses at the trial showed considerable courage giving evidence despite some having experienced online abuse on the social media pages of Rushmoor People First.
“We will not allow for racism or the far-right to spread within our community, and will not be intimidated by a minority who seek to divide us.”
Reform has pledged to ‘restore’ Britain’s Christian heritage if it was to win the next general election.
Its Head of Policy, and a senior advisor to Nigel Farage, James Orr, is an Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University. Its Home Affairs Spokesman, Zia Yusuf, announced earlier this year that British Christian values are at risk due to mass immigration and that Reform would prevent churches being converted into mosques.
The vice president of Reform’s Christian Fellowship, Dan Barker, told the Premier Christian News website in February that he agreed with this approach because “if you asked the man in the street about Christian values, the public good, the social good that is Christianity, that has declined in recent decades” and “there’s been a vacuum that has been filled by other ideas, with other religions – or no religion – or some quite dangerous political ideologies”.
He added: “Christianity has taken a back seat for too long. It’s part of our heritage, it’s part of our history, it’s so intrinsic to who we are as a country. We’ve got so much to be proud of, and so much of that is tied up with our Christian heritage. I think we need to be talking about it more often and in a more confident way.”
Naomi Smith, chief executive of the Best for Britain group, which campaigns to defeat populism, told Byline Times: “There’s an old saying that you can judge a person by the company they keep, and Nigel Farage evidently has serious questions to answer about his choice of company.
“Posing for photographs with individuals later convicted of a violent attack on an anti-racism gathering is not a minor lapse of judgment: it speaks directly to the character and values at the very heart of Reform UK.”
A spokesperson for the Green Party added that the revelations shed more light on Farage’s “history of links to the far right” and said it was vital to tackle the “divisive politics of Reform.”
Byline Times has been banned from attending any of Reform’s conferences.
In February, the party accused this newspaper of “attempting to derail a democratic election” when it asked Reform to comment on its candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election, Matt Goodwin’s, academic ties to organisations linked to pseudoscientific race ideology.
Do you have more information on the issues raised here? Get in touch in confidence: josiah@bylinetimes.com
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