Far-right rioter is believed to have taken his own life in prison after participating in race riots

I was sent some news yesterday which disturbed me a bit, so I wanted to write a blog post to reflect on it...

To briefly summarise the news story:

• A Far-Right activist who I knew from the pro-Brexit campaign has died in prison.

• Peter Lynch, 61, was serving a two-year sentence and eight-month sentence after taking part in the anti-immigration riots at a Holiday Inn Express in Manvers, Rotherham, in August where rioters set the building on fire while asylum seekers remained inside.

• He is believed to have taken his own life at HMP Moorland near Doncaster in south Yorkshire.

He was a regular attender at the pro-Brexit demonstrations outside Westminster, known for shouting conspiratorial slogans, such as "drain the swamp", as well as mundane or tautological phrases, such as "out means out" and "traitors" until he was hoarse. He also had these extremely badly made placards which usually featured some antisemitic statement. We never knew his name because he refused to give us even his first name - so, now I know he was called Peter and that he was a grandfather.

He was relatively friendly, and would chat to us in his broad Yorkshire accent, although his sentences were rather garbled and his arguments made little sense, with a lot of garbled conspiratorial nonsense. My videographer took many photos of me listening to him with a perplexed expression on my face as I tried to decipher what he was saying.

It therefore came as little surprise to me to read that the Judge had said in court that he had “a general conspiracy theory against anyone and any form of authority”.

I actually interviewed Peter for my documentary 'The Future is Europe' and I recall him being the hardest of all my interviewees to subtitle because it was so difficult to decipher what he was saying.

I honestly I don't know how I feel about this news. It's a terrible thing that somebody has died, but he clearly was a very troubled and violent man. I'm not at all surprised that he took part in the race riots over the summer but I am shocked that his life came to such a horrific end. I think overall it's just a tragic indictment of the state that the country is in.