“This is not a parody.”
Images circulating online this week of a newly proposed UKIP logo have prompted widespread ridicule, and more serious concern, after users discovered the emblem listed on the Electoral Commission’s website as part of an official party registration update.
Rendered in stark black and white, the emblem bears an unsettling resemblance to the Iron Cross, a military decoration historically associated with the Kingdom of Prussia and later Nazi Germany. It features a shield and spear, accompanied by a slogan branding UKIP as “the new right.”
“Not sure what the spear is supposed to denote, if you have a weapon on your logo it suggests the intent to use violence. This must be a joke!” one commenter wrote.
Another responded: “This actually chills my bones; it’s awful, so sinister and just grim.”
Others were explicit about the historical associations. “It’s the Iron Cross used in Germany… not hiding it anymore it seems,” one user claimed, while another added: “Makes it pretty clear where they would have stood in the 1930s.”
Mockery came in thick and fast. “Given UKIP was founded on 3 September 1993 by Professor Alan Sked, it can hardly call itself ‘new’,” one commenter noted.
The logo has already appeared on flags carried by UKIP supporters at protests, but its submission to the Electoral Commission raises the stakes. If approved, it could appear on ballot papers at future general elections.
Once a player in UK politics, especially during the 2016 EU referendum, UKIP has since faded from political relevance, eclipsed almost entirely by Reform UK and its former leader Nigel Farage. Today, UKIP rarely features in national headlines, a decline that may help explain the apparent rebrand.
The party is currently led by Nick Tenconi, chief operating officer of Turning Point UK, a right-wing youth organisation that promotes free-market economics and a reduced role for government. Turning Point UK attracted controversy in 2020 after spending more than £7,000 in a single week on Facebook advertising attacking then Labour leadership candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey. One advert, titled “Britain does not need a Jeremy Corbyn 2.0,” targeted younger voters and urged them to “use your vote wisely.”
UKIP’s honorary president is Neil Hamilton, the former Conservative MP for Tatton, whose political career has long been overshadowed by controversy. Hamilton lost his seat in 1997 amid allegations, which he denied, of accepting cash for parliamentary questions. Earlier, he sued the BBC over a Panorama claim that he had performed a Nazi salute during a parliamentary visit to Berlin. After the case was settled, Hamilton later admitted he had made a brief two-finger gesture intended to mimic a moustache.
Hamilton went on to lead the UKIP group in the Welsh Assembly after his election there in 2016. He later fell out with Nathan Gill, former leader of UKIP Wales, who was jailed in 2025 for accepting pro-Russian bribes.
UKIP’s leadership, controversies, and now its choice of symbolism suggest less a fresh political movement than an ageing organisation grasping for attention.
If the logo was intended to provoke, it has succeeded. Whether it reassures voters, or instead reinforces fears about where UKIP now stands, is another matter entirely.
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