Holocaust denier David Irving speaks to journalists in Warsaw during a 2010 visit to death camps and other World War II sites in Poland. Photo: Reuters / Kacper Pempel.

David Irving, the octogenarian British Holocaust denier, is reported to have been back on the road this week with a speaking tour on “Unusual History.”

Irving, who unsuccessfully sued the American Jewish historian Deborah Lipstadt for libel two decades ago, is the author of several books on Nazi Germany, all of which whitewash Hitler’s regime and demonize Allied leaders like Winston Churchill and FDR as “war criminals.” After his libel action against Lipstadt failed, the judge in the case, Sir Charles Gray, famously reduced Irving’s reputation to that of a “Holocaust denier, antisemite, and racist.”

Irving has continued to push his Holocaust denial agenda, and was even jailed by the Austrian authorities in 2006 for a talk he gave in Vienna nearly twenty years earlier that described the Nazi gas chambers as a “fairytale.” This week, the Scottish news outlet The Ferret discovered Irving on his latest tour of the British Isles, taking in Glasgow and Stirling in Scotland and Manchester, Birmingham and Coventry in England.

News of Irving’s presence in Scotland brought condemnation from local Jewish and anti-racist groups, The Ferret reported.

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Edward Sutherland of the Confederation of Friends of Israel Scotland (COFIS) said: “We reject the discredited and grossly offensive views that David Irving has expressed about the Holocaust, and believe the secrecy surrounding his tour shows that even he now recognizes that they are not appropriate for any public space.”

A statement from Scottish Unite Against Fascism, an activist group, noted that “although David Irving is not the respected figure he once was, his lies still muddy the water about this tragic historical event. With the rise of the far right globally, the terrible story of the Holocaust becomes even more vital, and teaching it should become a requirement of school curriculum.”