AN anti-fascism campaign group has spoken out after a neo-Nazi group co-founder from Swindon was found guilty of terror charges.

Ben Raymond, 32, co-founded National Action in 2013. The group promoted ethnic cleansing and attacks on LGBTQ people and liberals.

After Raymond was convicted of terror charges on Tuesday Matthew Collins, the head of intelligence at HOPE not Hate, said: “We have long followed Ben Raymond’s hate-filled work, and little that came out of his trial at Bristol Crown Court this month has been a surprise to us.

“He is a Nazi who has consistently shown admiration for terrorism, and propagated an extremist politics that glorifies racism, anti-semitism and misogyny.

“It is our sincere belief that Raymond’s actions are almost singlehandedly responsible for a new generation of ‘bedroom terrorists’, a growing number of young men who have become radicalised by Ben Raymond and are now obsessed with carrying out terror attacks in the name of Raymond’s ‘White Jihad’ philosophy.

“We hope that the horrors which emerged in this trial may finally wake people up to the fact we have a very real and very serious terrorist threat from the far right in this country. ”

National Action was banned under terror legislation in December 2016, becoming the first far-right group to be proscribed since the British Union of Fascists in 1940.

After the move by the Home Office Raymond, from Wiltshire, helped National Action morph in to a new group called NS131 – National Socialist Anti-Capitalist Action.

Raymond, of Beechcroft Road, Swindon, denied being a member of a proscribed organisation contrary to Section 11 of the Terrorism Act but was convicted on Tuesday after a three-week trial at Bristol Crown Court.

He did not give evidence in his defence.

Raymond was further convicted of two counts of possessing a document or record of use to a terrorist contrary to Section 58 of the Act.

He was acquitted of four further offences under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act.

Prosecutor Barnaby Jameson QC likened Raymond to Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, and said he avoided plotting attacks or hoarding weapons himself.

The father-of-one was remanded into custody by Judge Christopher Parker QC and is facing jail when sentenced tomorrow.