Richard Edmonds

Richard Charles Edmonds (born 10 March 1943) is a British far-right political activist. He was the deputy chairman and national organiser of the British National Party (BNP) and has also been prominent in the National Front during two spells of membership.

Biography

Edmonds began his political career as a member of the National Front (NF), in which he held a number of positions during John Tyndall's chairmanship of the party. In the October 1974 general election he was NF candidate at Deptford, polling 1,731 votes (4.5%). At this time, he was a mathematics teacher at Tulse Hill Comprehensive. In his election address he said: "To young immigrants, Richard Edmonds says that they should study to the best of their abilities, for their duty and future lie in helping their compatriots to build up their own countries". He followed Tyndall into the New National Front in 1980 and was appointed head of the youth section, editing Young Nationalist magazine.

From 1982, Edmonds held senior positions within the newly formed British National Party (BNP), eventually becoming deputy leader and also acting leader for a spell in 1986 while Tyndall was in prison for incitement to racial hatred. Edmonds took a role in funding the party, including partially funding the purchase of a new party headquarters and bookshop in Welling.^[1] Edmonds ran the party's Welling premises, living in the premises, for ten years, from 1989 to 1999. In the 1992 election he gained a 3.6% share of the vote in Bethnal Green and Stepney, the party's best showing in that election.

Edmonds has a number of criminal convictions. In 1988, The Sunday Times revealed that Holocaust News, a publication that claimed the Holocaust was an "evil hoax", was being published by Edmonds, on behalf of a BNP front organisation, the Centre for Historical Review, and distributed by members. According to John Tyndall, after this interview took place Edmonds gave Jon Craig and Jo Revell, the two journalists covering the story, his business card telephone number in the strictest confidence. Subsequently the published article contained the name of the company Edmonds worked for. Tyndall says that the next day Edmonds was told he would have to leave.^[2] The theme was re-visited in Panorama on 8 April 1991, when Edmonds described the publication as "a wonderful statement of the truth".^[3] In 1993, Edmonds and a group of BNP members were drinking outside a pub in Bethnal Green; when a black man and his white girlfriend tried to pass they were spat at by the BNP crowd who shouted "nigger lover" and "monkey" at them. Edmonds threw a beer glass at them and the others "glassed" the man's face and punched and kicked him. Edmonds was sentenced to three months in prison for his part in this racially motivated assault.^[4] He had been convicted for damaging a statue of Nelson Mandela on the South Bank in London. There was further controversy in 1993 when he told The Guardian's Duncan Campbell that "we [the BNP] are 100% racist".^[5] Edmonds had previously clarified his position to Panorama as "racism means long live the white race, long live the British race".^[6]

Edmonds held the position of national organiser until 1999 when he was forced to resign following the victory of Nick Griffin in the leadership election that year. Edmonds remained Tyndall's closest ally but was not expelled from the party when Tyndall and another long-term ally, John Morse, were expelled in 2003, before being subsequently reinstated. Edmonds continued to write for Spearhead until it ceased publication on Tyndall's death in 2005. He is a long-term supporter of John Tyndall. Although he sometimes attended events sponsored by the Nationalist Alliance, Edmonds remained a member of the BNP, playing a leading role in its Croydon branch (which has been at times somewhat cool towards the national leadership).^[7]

Surprisingly to some, Edmonds was co-opted by Griffin onto the BNP's Advisory Council in September 2008, thereby returning to the upper echelon of the party and ending his period of apparent dissidence. However, in August 2010, following Eddy Butler's unsuccessful leadership challenge, Edmonds was sacked from the Advisory Council due to his open criticism of Griffin's fundraiser, Jim Dowson, and to his support for the leadership bid by Butler.^[8]

Following the party's poor showing in the 2011 English local elections, Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliamentary elections, Edmonds announced his candidature for the leadership of the BNP. According to The Guardian Edmonds had little chance of success but the contest was expected to lead to a series of defections from the party.^[9] At the end of May 2011 Richard Edmonds stepped down from his challenge in favour of Andrew Brons.^[10]

The National Front, in a report on its 2011 AGM, claimed^[11] that Edmonds had decided to rejoin the NF. This was subsequently confirmed and he took up a role as an activist for the group.^[12] He was the party's candidate in the 2012 Croydon North by-election, finishing eighth out of twelve candidates with 161 votes (0.7% vote share)^[13] and in Carshalton and Wallington for the United Kingdom general election, 2015, receiving 49 votes (0.1%).^[14] He was the NF's candidate in the Batley and Spen by-election, occasioned by the murder of the MP Jo Cox, held on 20 October 2016^[15] when he polled 87 votes (0.43%).^[16]

Elections contested

UK Parliament elections

Greater London Council elections

London Assembly elections

References

Bibliography

• N. Copsey, Contemporary British Fascism: The British National Party and the Quest for Legitimacy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004
• John Tyndall, The Eleventh Hour, Welling: Albion Press, 1998

External links

• YouTube playlist of Richard Edmonds' speeches