Year of the Rat : Undercover in the British Far Right by Harry Shukman (PRE-ORDER)

DATE OF RELEASE: 8 MAY 2025

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 exposé – 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.


Malcolm’s activism was his philosophy, and paying attention to it reveals the true cultural icon – who, if he were alive today, would tell us to pick up the mantle, and overturn this wicked system for good.

Hardback

Publication: 8 May 2025, Chatto & Windus

ISBN: 9781784746049
Extent: 320 pages