19 Facts About David Kurten

David Michael Kurten was born on 22 March 1971 and is a British politician who has served as leader of the Heritage Party since September 2020.

David Kurten was previously a member of the London Assembly for Londonwide from 2016 to 2021.

David Kurten is the registered leader of the Heritage Party and characterises himself as a social conservative.

David Michael Kurten was born in Littlehampton in Sussex on 22 March 1971 to parents Reginald Kurten and Patricia Kurten.

The son of a British mother and Jamaican father, Kurten was raised by his single mother and his maternal grandparents in Sussex.

David Kurten studied chemistry at the University of St Andrews, graduating BSc in 1993, before completing a PGCE at the University of Bath in 1995 and graduating MRes in chemistry at the University of Southampton in 1998.

David Kurten was second in the UKIP London-wide list in the 2016 London Assembly election and was elected to the London Assembly alongside Peter Whittle, with the party getting 171,069 votes.

In October 2016, David Kurten announced his intention to stand for UKIP leader following the resignation of Diane James after just 18 days.

David Kurten ran in the 2017 UKIP leadership election, where he came third, with Henry Bolton elected as leader.

David Kurten stepped down from the UKIP frontbench on 22 January 2018 in protest at Bolton's refusal to stand down as leader after receiving a vote of no confidence from the party's national executive committee the previous day.

In December 2018, David Kurten again resigned from the UKIP frontbench, this time on account of the anti-Islam direction of UKIP under the party's then-leader Gerard Batten, most significantly Batten's appointment of activist Tommy Robinson as an advisor on grooming gangs.

On 12 December 2018, following Peter Whittle's departure from UKIP, he and David Kurten disbanded the UKIP grouping on the London Assembly and formed the Brexit Alliance group, though David Kurten remained a member of UKIP.

In December 2019, David Kurten stood as the UKIP candidate in the constituency of Bognor Regis and Littlehampton in the 2019 general election after the new Brexit Party announced that it would not be contesting seats won by the Conservative Party at the 2017 general election.

In January 2020, David Kurten announced he would run as an independent candidate in the upcoming London mayoral and London Assembly elections.

David Kurten founded a new political party in 2020: the Heritage Party was registered with the Electoral Commission that October.

In December 2020, David Kurten rejected a COVID-19 vaccine, for which he was denounced by the Conservative mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey, who saw this as irresponsible for an elected politician.

David Kurten has opposed lockdowns implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and he has attended protests against UK government policies.

David Kurten contested the December 2021 Old Bexley and Sidcup by-election, finishing ninth, with 116 votes.

At the 2024 general election, David Kurten ran again in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, coming last with 708 votes.