Year of the Rat: Undercover in the British Far Right
(Paperback)
Available Formats
Publishing Details
Year of the Rat: Undercover in the British Far Right
By (Author) Harry Shukman
Vintage Publishing
Chatto & Windus
19th August 2025
United Kingdom
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Reportage, journalism or collected columns
Nationalism
Terrorism, armed struggle
Social discrimination and social justice
Social groups, communities and identities
Social and cultural history
Sociology and anthropology
Physical Properties
Paperback
320
Width 135mm, Height 216mm, Spine 40mm
500g
Description
Follows HOPE not hate researcher and reporter Harry Shukman on a year undercover infiltrating far-right groups in the UK The British far right is working to dismantle our democracy. This shocking, eye-opening undercover journey reveals who they are, how they operate and how they are normalising extreme ideologies including eugenics. In summer 2024, riots swept England in the biggest wave of far-right violence in the post-war period. But far-right activity takes many other forms as well, all of them dangerous. Journalist Harry Shukman knows the dangers all too well- he'd gone undercover to infiltrate these groups. For over a year, he carefully attached his hidden lapel camera and pretended to be an extremist named Chris. We follow Shukman as he hangs out in the pub with a secretive community network, canvasses with political party Britain First and attends a neo-Nazi conference. We meet a circle of Holocaust deniers, a race science organisation with a major Silicon Valley investor and right-wing think tanks supported by Conservative policymakers. What we witness is hard to believe, or stomach. Year of the Rat is a gripping and urgent expose - nail-bitingly tense, darkly absurd and utterly chilling. Risking his safety and sanity, Shukman has removed the far right's terrifyingly everyday mask. Now, we must ensure it stays off.
Reviews
This undercover expose of far right extremism in the UK is truly gripping. Unputdownable. * Otto English *
A horribly compelling account What he exposes is both petrifying and sometimes surprising, and is related with admirable compassion, humanity and even humour * Bookseller *
Author Bio
Harry Shukman is a researcher at HOPE not hate, an anti-fascist organisation. Formerly a journalist, he worked as a news reporter for The Times and then a writer and editor for the Manchester Mill - an investigative online newspaper - and its sister sites in Liverpool and Sheffield.
