A far-right campaigner from Sutton is to run for election in the seat of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox.

Richard Edmonds, a veteran National Front candidate, said standing in the Batley and Spen by-election was “a way of getting attention”.

Most mainstream political parties have chosen not to contest the seat, to which Mrs Cox was elected in 2015. She was shot and stabbed to death outside a constituency surgery in Birstall, West Yorkshire, on June 16 this year.

But Mr Edmonds, who was the National Front candidate for the London Assembly seat in May and also ran for election to Parliament in Carshalton and Wallington last year, said: “I don’t see why I should be criticised for standing. It’s the people’s democratic right to vote for the candidates standing.

“The politicians from the major parties are standing in solidarity with their colleague; it is their right. And now they are talking about increasing security for themselves – well, what about the security of regular people?”

Asked if he was standing in Batley and Spen as a publicity stunt, the 73-year-old replied: “I would not use those words, but politics is a way of getting attention to your cause.”

Mr Edmonds received 49 votes in last year’s general election, fewer than any other candidate in Carshalton and Wallington.

He will stand in Batley and Spen against several other right-wing parties, including Liberty GB, the British National Party, the English Democrats and the English Independence Party, as well as the One Love Party and four independents.

Tracy Lynn Brabin, a former Coronation Street actress, is Labour’s candidate in the October 20 by-election.

The Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, Ukip and the Green Party have all said they will not field a candidate out of respect for mother-of-two Mrs Cox.

Thomas Mair, 53, of Birstall, is set to stand trial for her murder at the Old Bailey on November 14