Years ago, long before the current incarnation of the British National Party there was the National Front.

The NF lacked the intellect and polish of the BNP, but it more than made up with neo-Nazism and leaders that formed their views amongst the post-WW 2 dregs of the Extreme Right.

Today’s crop of Far Righters did not appear overnight, they have a history both intellectually and physically joined at the hip with Mosleyism and 1960’s British National Socialism.

Few antifascists can forget the picture of John Tyndall or Colin Jordon striding around in fake Brown shirt clobber, replete with Nazi insignia.

Which leads us to Richard Edmonds, long time fixture on Britain’s Extreme Right, who I ran across in the 1970s. He’s not the type of person you could forget, tallish with a grasping violent manner and a true neo-Nazi believer, as HOPE not hate details:

“Richard Edmonds was once a powerful figure in the BNP, the right-hand man to its founder, John Tyndall. Despite his marginalisation under the new “modern” BNP Edmonds remains an important figure whom Griffin cannot afford wholly to ignore, not for who he is but because of what he stands for. After Tyndall’s death in 2005 Edmonds took over as the personification of the “old” hardline, antisemitic BNP, with which many of its activists still identify. A former member of the National Front, Edmonds was a teacher in Tulse Hill, south London where teachers and pupils alike were less than impressed by his political activities. He is a convinced antisemite and played a leading role in producing the Holocaust denial newspaper Holocaust News.”

The video below shows EDL leader, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon AKA Tommy Robinson lapping up Richard Edmonds’ racist rants with gusto.

As the antifascist YouTube channel, BNPinfo relates:

“This photo shows EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon with violent race-hate criminal, Holocaust denier and senior BNP and NF official Richard Edmonds, and with John Pater of an openly Nazi group called the November 9th Society. Richard Edmonds published an extreme right-wing magazine called Holocaust News, which pretended Hitler never gassed Jews, gypsies, gays and disabled people in concentration camps, and is the person who famously admitted on TV that the BNP are “100% Racist”. The Nov 9th Society is also known (ironically) as the British First Party, but takes the Nov 9th name from the date of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s failed 1923 beer-hall putsch in… Germany! Despite what the EDL say about how immigrants should respect British laws, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is currently being investigated for money laundering and was jailed for attacking a police officer who tried to stop Yaxley-Lennon beating-up his own girlfriend. “

I think that tells us the type of company that the ex-BNPer and current EDL leader, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon AKA Tommy Robinson really likes to keep.

(Hat tip: FightBack UK)

Update 1: The JC has more on the November 9th Society:

“Kevin Quinn, leader of the extreme-right November 9th Society, was unequivocal about its policy when the JC called him. Israel, rather than Jews, was the enemy, he insisted, even if that contradicted a past advertisement in a virulently antisemitic publication. When it was pointed out to Quinn that the majority of people in Israel are Jewish, he replied without a hint of irony: “I was under the impression that Israel was formed as a homeland for all Jews. I would invite all Jews to go back there.” The society’s spiritual leader is Adolf Hitler and Quinn denies the Holocaust, claiming it was a “physical impossibility.” He contends that 300,000 died from typhoid and Allied bombing. In any event, he is “not concerned with what happened to Jews or anyone else in a foreign country. I am concerned only with Great Britain and what happens here, with asylum seekers coming through tunnels, with pensioners who cannot afford to pay heating bills, with British soldiers coming home in body bags.” These sentiments are repeated on the N9S website, which carries videos that, at the very least, are in poor taste. Kevin Quinn — a 41-year-psychiatric nurse and father-of-four — maintains that the Society is “not Fascist. We are National Socialist.” He claims it has “about 940 members” and organises demonstrations “all over the country.” It hopes to field four or five candidates in next year’s local elections. But one source who monitors far-right organisations questioned the membership claims. “When they do appear, they cannot muster more than about a dozen people. They like to dress up in uniforms but do not do much else.” Quinn admitted to having worn a uniform in the past but claimed he no longer did so. He did not give Nazi salutes in public. He dubbed the British National Party “Conservatives on steroids.” “