Year of the Rat
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  • Published: 19 August 2025
  • ISBN: 9781784746056
  • Imprint: Chatto & Windus
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $36.99

Year of the Rat

Undercover in the British Far Right

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
19 Aug 2025
EBook
8 May 2025
Audiobook
8 May 2025
Hardback
8 Jun 2025
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Follows HOPE not hate researcher and reporter Harry Shukman on a year undercover infiltrating far-right groups in the UK

'Anyone who wants to understand British politics has to read this book.' Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism

‘Important and courageous’ James O’Brien

The British far right is working to dismantle our democracy. This shocking, eye-opening first-hand account 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.
  • Published: 19 August 2025
  • ISBN: 9781784746056
  • Imprint: Chatto & Windus
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $36.99
Categories:

Praise for Year of the Rat

‘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

'Anyone who wants to understand British politics has to read this book.'

Grace Blakeley

Compelling… [Shukman] is to be commended for his efforts, which must have taken courage and determination

Observer

[A] courageous and diligent book… a close and gripping inspection of the character of the far right and threat it poses… Shukman’s reporting is bold and assiduous, and provides rare documentary insight

New Statesman

Shukman’s brave delve into the dark recesses of Britain’s Far Right feels especially timely… The strength of Year of the Rat is…the inferences to the shady puppet-masters who continue to shape world politics for the worse

UK Press Syndication

[An] illuminating and disturbing portrait of today’s British far right

Jewish Chronicle
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