The group was launched in December 2018 at the
Royal Automobile Club in London. The event was hosted by
John Mappin, a hotel owner and
QAnon supporter. On the day of its social media launch in February 2019, MPs including
Jacob Rees-Mogg and
Priti Patel tweeted supportive messages for the organisation, as did
Nigel Farage, while it was marked for criticism by others. At its inception, the organisation and its leading members were the subject of widespread popular ridicule on the social networking service
Twitter. The ridicule continued for at least a week. It was described by the
BBC as "a tsunami of online mockery". There was also a protest from the charity
Turning Point over potential confusion caused by similarities between the two names. Turning Point UK's chairman was
George Farmer At its launch in 2019 the group had employed several full-time staff. In June 2019 it held a £180-a-head fundraising dinner hosted by
Ferzana Barclay, wife of
Daily Telegraph owner
Aidan Barclay. This was attended by Nigel Farage, artist
Amanda Eliasch,
Brexit Party chair
Richard Tice, antisemitic conspiracy theorist John Mappin, Brexit Party candidate
Lance Forman, and pundit
Toby Young. According to the
Oxford University newspaper
Cherwell in early 2019, the group "claims to already have chapters at eight universities". The group's then chairman George Farmer told the paper they had chapters at the universities of
Sussex,
Oxford,
St Andrews,
York,
Warwick,
Nottingham,
King's College London,
University College London, the
London School of Economics and the
University of the Arts London. The scholar
Chris Allen, of the Centre for Hate Studies at
Leicester University, has written that while the group is linked to Turning Point USA, which Allen notes has been linked to the far-right, the UK group does not fit traditional conceptions of the
far-right. Allen notes the group's closely similar rhetoric and demographic to
Generation Identity, a continental European group whose intentions are racist and
Islamophobic. Dominique Samuels, one of the group's "Young Influencers", told the
BBC during a radio interview that the UK branch would not set up the same controversial
Professor Watchlist for which its US counterpart is known. == Street protests ==