Richard Edmonds of the National Front is dead, and the world is now a slightly better place.

[CW: descriptions of holocaust denial, racial slurs and racially-motivated attacks]

So Richard Edmonds is dead. Reports from inner circles say that he was found yesterday on the floor of his home by fellow neo-nazi activist Paul Ballard (National Front, BNP, Combat 18) having lain dead for 2 days. His final public appearance had only been on the National Front zoom meeting that took place on the 20th, which means he died very shortly after the recording.

Edmonds started his political activism in the early 70s when he joined the National Front. When the BNP was formed in the early 80s, Edmonds faithfully followed his mate John Tyndall there and into various positions of seniority over the next 30 years, at one point acting as leader while Tyndall was banged up for incitement to racial hatred. He was key in the funding of the BNP headquarters and bookshop in Welling, South East London, living above the heavily fortified building himself for 10 years. After a period of turbulence through the Nick Griffin years (and being penalised after he dared to criticise Jim Dowson, founder of Britain First and the crusader LARP group the The Knights Templar), Edmonds slunk off back to the National Front where he remained until his death, pushing every last penny he owned into the group. Edmonds was also on the speaker circuit within revisionist and neo-nazi circles and regularly gigged for groups like London Forum, November 9th Society and Heritage & Destiny events.

But his real “legacy” is the catalogue of holocaust denial, racism and violent attacks that he committed through that time. Here is a list of just some of it.

Racism and Violent Attacks

• Edmonds once led a brutal attack on a community meeting in Welling, alongside convicted nazi terrorist Tony Lecomber (who was jailed for three years for stockpiling explosives and grenades in his house to prepare for a “race war”). Thirteen people needed hospital treatment after being beaten with chairs and sticks.
• He took part in an attack on a black civil rights meeting in 1989, acting as getaway driver while others marched up the stairs and tossed tear gas and smoke bombs into the meeting, before making a run for it.
• He supported South African apartheid and was once convicted for damaging the Nelson Mandela statue in South Bank, London.
• Following clashes with antifascists on Brick Lane in 1993, Edmonds and pals linked to neo-nazi paramilitary group Combat 18 carried out a cowardly attack on a black man and his white girlfriend in Bethnal Green, glassing the man and scarring him for life, to chants of “monkey” as well as “n***** lover” at his partner. Several including Edmonds were convicted for this attack.
• He was particularly upset by interracial relationships, and once described white women who have children with black men as “Silly ******* aren’t they? Maybe she’s got a black kid you see? Or maybe her sister’s got a black kid? That I think is always the explanation around here. Once they go with blacks, they’re part of the black tribe. Wicked, horrible, stupid.”
• When MP Jo Cox was murdered by a far right fanatic in 2016, he unsuccessfully tried to capitalise on the tensions that followed her murder by standing as a National Front candidate in the Batley and Spen by-election that took place after her death.

Holocaust Denial

• He produced literature claiming that the holocaust was an “evil hoax” and regularly distributed the “Did Six Million Really Die?” pamphlet amongst his BNP comrades.
• He was an avid supporter of the notorious German revisionist Ernst Zündel, famous for his publication of “The Hitler We Loved and Why“, and was part of a group who greeted Ernst upon his release from prison with a bunch of flowers back in 2010.
• He spoke out in defence of prominent British holocaust denier David Irving and attended Irving’s court dates in support during trial for revisionist-related charges.

While the fash grieve their neo-nazi hero – and are already talking about monetising the death through a “memorial auction”, of all things – we should take this opportunity to remind ourselves of what made Edmonds such a nasty piece of work. The snarling old tosser appears to have met quite a sad ending – devoting his very last moments to his nazism, and in death still being used for money by the people he called “friends”. We’re not sad to hear it – one more piece of nazi scum off the street, and more importantly, the planet.

Rest in piss, Richard.