Year of the Rat

Undercover in the British Far Right

Harry Shukman

$36.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Chatto & Windus
19 August 2025

Reportage & collected journalism; Social discrimination; Politics & government; Nationalism; Fascism & Nazism; Terrorism, armed struggle

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.

By: Harry Shukman
Imprint: Chatto & Windus
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 217mm, Width: 137mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 322g
ISBN: 9781784746056
ISBN 10: 1784746053
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 19 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

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.

Reviews for Year of the Rat: Undercover in the British Far Right

‘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 *