“Far-right activism takes many forms. There are sophisticated, educated and resourceful campaigners working towards ridding the country of anyone not considered white and British. I became close to well-funded, well-connected extremists who sought to widen the Overton Window – the range of ideas acceptable to the mainstream – to include race science and eugenics. Some of them enjoy the support of American tech tycoons and Conservative policymakers, work in the right-wing think tank scene and, in one case, write policy papers for downing street.”
A staggering investigative triumph. blistering, revelatory, & bold-as-brass-bollocks, it could easily, for me, go on to become the best books published in 2025.
basically, a undercover journo infiltrates a series of movements & organisations in the English far-right movement with a hidden camera, under the tutelage of a veteran from anti-racism outfit Hope Not Hate.
The evidence, disclosures & highly-detailed fly-on-the-wall reporting & observations are exceptional, but its much more than that.
Shukman’s reporting uncovers the extraordinary corruption, undue influence & wilfully inefficient prevention (political, policing, regulatory) to halt the tumescent crisis.
As an almost secondary feature, it also decodes a surprisingly poignant & distressing insight into how power/corruption & “selection” works in Carcass Britain, with unimaginable ideologies & operators gaining secretive appointment or induction through a kind of super-base end-of-times transactionalist subterfuge.
“There is a targeted, well-funded effort to influence society into believing that races cannot live together because of irreconcilable genetic factors.”
& perhaps most imperative of all, it unveils some of the filthy-rich & malign interests that are funding & fomenting this deliberate degeneration.
Unsurprisingly to those who are attentive to the progression of this decay, a considerable contaminant is coming from Silicon Valley, U$A, an escalating virulent source of contagion, & in the UK’s sad & pitiful case, a form of shadow government.
I had heard prior to completing Year of the Rat, that Shukman had “unmasked” one such clandestine interventionist from the new Silicon Valley “Nerd Reich” (an expression coined by political commentator Gil Duran to describe the billionaire tech-fascist neo-feudal dystopiaphiles scourge wallowing in “The Valley”).
As soon as I purchased the book, I went straight to the back to consult the index, but there was none!
But sure as shit, later in the book, when the lens turns more towards those financing this racism & division, the name I was after would be confirmed, & reverberate again & again – Peter Thiel (the other “mystery” funder from Silicon Valley is revealed as Andrew Conru).
Its difficult to overcook how precious the admissions & dialogue that Shukman relays from his targets actually is. The books content’s & the breadth of his undercover work offer a badly required “proof” that is necessary to spell-out the scale & gravity of how bad things actually are.
Things we have known all-to-well, but here is the irreducible & ineluctable proof, plainly stated & irreversible.
“Far-right organisations seek to expand using disingenuous methods.” “Everyone puts on the mask”
Shukman infiltrates Britain First, led by blatant Russian asset, & ruthless own-flock fleecer Paul Golding.
“Rumours of Paul’s connections to the Kremlin, prompted by several trips to Russia, where he once spoke in the Duma, have made the party and its volatile leader a priority of anti-extremism research.”
it’s some of the lowliest shit I have ever read in my life.
“I want this country to become a shithole’, he says. Only when Britain is ‘a fucking nightmare’ – caused by a precipitous decline in living standards [austerity/Brexit] and community cohesion with violence on the streets – will people finally wake up and support Britain First.”
One particularly vivid account comes when they try & flyer & campaign in a picturesque Essex village to the utter revulsion of it’s residents.
“In August, we go to Finchingfield, a village in Essex. Few countryside communities are as gorgeous as this.”
“The problem is, nobody in the village wants us here. The battle bus plays patriotic tunes through a sound system. ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ is booming as a dozen far-right campaigners climb out of the vehicles and ruin a lovely Saturday afternoon. The drinkers in the pub, the diners in the tea room, and every dog walker and picnicker look at us like we’re manure salesman.”
told to “fuck off!”, asked to leave by a pub landlord, stared at, & heckled by locals, moods sour on all sides – “It is strange, feeling this unwelcome”.
They decide to evacuate.
“We head to our cars, nervously looking around for the atmosphere to snap. Paul gets behind the wheel of the battle bus, and drives off, turning ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ on the sound system up to max volume.”
“‘Let’s hope they rapes your daughters’ he shouts as we speed away.”
“’Let’s hope they fuck her up the arse,’ Max [another Britain First activist] yells’”
Another astonishing report revolves around when the group goes on a camping holiday in the Peak District. It’s a kind of scumbag & degenerates Eden, wracked by endless infighting & endo-commuinty abuse.
“Paul sees his members as cashpoints” with many saying Golding leaves them feeling “ripped off”.
“‘I’ve come to a big realisation,’ Paul mutters to Ashlea. ‘The thing is, there is no money any more. Everyone’s skint these days. Half the people have got on with their life. People haven’t turned up … We just spent seven grand on sitting round a fire ’.
Seven grand of his members money.”
in the dire, drunken, conflict raked chaos of the camp, Shukman also manages to ease-drop on Golding’s parasitic profiteering from Britain First supporters funds –
“‘Just one more wage till [sic[ Thailand’” – “nobody dares confront Paul about the money being spent on tropical holidays.”
“What I say in public is very different to what I believe in private, but to go after mainstream support, you have to watch what you say’.” … “everyone puts on the mask”
It’s later in the book, that you get to all the disturbing, “posh-boy” eugenicists, polygenic screening, “race science”, pronatalism & “repatriation” from outfits like Aporia, PolygenX, The Jolly Heretic, Pioneer Fund, Neo Byzantium, OpenPsych, Mankind Quarterly & other bizarre & highly-furtive ‘underground research organisations’.
This is also where much of the big money from Silicon Valley sickos comes in.
“ – secured thousands of dollars of funding from a Silicon Valley investor.
Congratulations I replied. Was it Peter Thiel?
Thiel, a billionaire co-founder of PayPal and early investor in Facebook, is frequently whispered about as a funder of far-right projects. Activists joke that they are trying to get their hands on ‘Thielbucks’.
Posing as an “investor” & interviewing activists & organisation officials, the reporting becomes repellent, & what he reveals & captures is simply off-the-rails.
“In three or four years’ time, this will be the destination of controversial science [eugenics]. “We would rather be read by a few billionaires than 10’000 normies.”
“Matt fantasises about filling ships with people and manoeuvring them to Morocco, and forcing the government to receive a human cargo. ‘We’re smarter than you. We’re bigger than you: you’re going to do this.’ Matt’s eyes are shining with enthusiasm. ‘Imagine that this happened in the next ten, fifteen years, what that would do for the West, for Europe.’”
“Emil Kirkegaard (now William Engman), a “race science” flogger who now lives in Germany on property belonging to an official member of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) wrote about “solution” for men that want to have sex with children –
‘having sex with a sleeping child without them knowing it (so using sleeping medicine).’ He added ‘if they don’t notice it is difficult how they cud [sic] be harmed, even if it is rape.’”
these are the “misfits and weirdos” that Dominic Cummings recommend, solicit, represent & induct into political power (Andrew Sabisky).
Peter Thiel flew Emil Kirkegaard out to meet & discuss his ideas in 2019. Emil described such attention & largesse as “the Thiel treatment” & almost definitely has been the beneficiary of “Thielbucks”.
The insanely predatory fleecing, exploitation & abuse of members/the flock is astounding.
“‘We have to control everything.’ ‘We need to keep people on edge and emotionally engaged like this. A little bit of paranoia makes the world more comfy’”
‘This is how we break up the bond.’ – ‘systematically taking away the other options,’”
‘some of this stuff, I’m aware sounds quite manipulative’.
“Not only are they exploiting the loneliness of these young men, they are rinsing them for whatever money they may have.”
“They are being manipulated by people who have studied the secrets of cult management.”
citing Andrew Tate – “He is not our main source of inspiration, but it is a working business model”.
Shukman returns to this statistic again & again. Poverty, loneliness & disinformation being the disastrous ingredients that swallow these lost vulnerable drifters into the clutches of callous & uncaring conmen, fraudsters, exploiters & perversion ideologues.
‘Once you are the ad network, once you are providing them with these product placements, you can basically agenda-set,’ -’Imagine being able to tell ten to fifteen right-wing You-Tubers’ to talk about X, or talk positively about politician Y’”
He says his network will be able to ‘make or break a politician’”.
Nigel Farage has an especially prevalent & substantial social media presence & effort.
One such excrescence explains his “vision for the future” & main inspiration – “‘World Jewry and Israel’, adding ‘You have a state, but the benefit of a transnational, stateless organisation … This, but run by based people. So, Judaism’ – here, he lowers his voice – ‘For white, Christian people.’
He’s talking about an ethnostate.”
one of the Silicon Valley funders who is outed is Andrew Conru, the “internet businessman” that created Adult Finder. He has been “secretly” funding child-sex-attacker apologist Emil Kirkegaard “for years” as well as the US white supremacist Jared Taylor.
The seventh chapter sees Shukman go undercover into the “Elite Super-Breeder” or “pronatalist” spectrum. Simone & Michael Collins. “Reproductive technology”, & expensive, private services for “screening embryos for desirable traits through IVF”, described by one investigator as “hipster eugenics” & “isolated and differential breeding networks”.
This is profoundly sick stuff.
Immaculately networked & clearly lavishly funded by secretive donors (it’s coming), the “elite super-breeder” celebrity couple run a meticulously manicured PR campaign, but in private, they’ admit to Shukman; “When we talk to reporters, we’re very, “Oh! This isn’t just for the elites,” but, in truth, we do target the elites unfortunately,’ he says, laughing”.
It only gets worse, sicker & weirder.
Naturally, Peter Thiel has/is involved, with Simone having previously worked for Thiel running his Dialog outfit, an elite networking organisation for moneyed racists & freaks.
Malcom, it will be revealed, also came from an extraordinarily damaged family, & was sent to a “prison school” during his childhood, where he was horrificly abused.
The experience has left him badly warped, ideal for “the Thiel treatment”.
Thiel himself has two baby girls – via an unidentified surrogate (god knows what?) – with his husband Matt Denzeisen).
Thiel is also an advocate & big investor in “seasteading”, that is legally autonomous Libertarian regions/city communities built on strcutures in the ocean & run by a dictator or “executor” that are outside of international jurisdiction.
Presumably Emil’s defence of having sex with drugged children will be obsolete here as paedophilia will be fully legal in “The Thielverse” (see Thiel’s “20 Under 20 Fellowship”, his late dinners & investment/business partnership (Thiel’s Valar Ventures, the largest & most valuable in the Jeffrey Epstein estate) with notorious child sex trafficker & convicted child sexual abuser – Jeffrey Epstein – & his “Grotto” party antics for further information on his “esoteric and transgressive” tastes).
Once again, Shukman’s undercover reporting discloses more twisted conspiracy & plotting, with a plan for a seasteading or “charter city” dictatorship on – The Isle of Man which is described as; “The Next Empire; Leveraging a Changing World to Save Civilization”.
“The city would be funded, the document claims, by becoming a hub for ‘no-holds-barred’ medical research. ‘This attracts extant and cutting edge businesses to develop therapies and innovations (including artificial wombs and human genetic modification) that are in high demand but nearly impossible to develop in a heavily regulated environment’.”
“If you can get some billionaires signed on board with us, we can probably pass this” one Isle of Man official apparently gushed.
really. it’s actually that sick. & honestly, there’s more, read the book.
Malcolm explains that pronatalism advocacy depends on finding “‘One young non-white person to be the face of everything’. He is insistent on this. ‘We need one young non-white girl. That’s the goal. You have to, right?’”
This is some of the best journalism this decade. We all know it, but Harry Shukman has got it on tape & committed it to print.
You find a single one-in-a-million abnormal quisling freak, stuff them with “Thielbucks” & artificially amplified agency, platform, networking & exposure, & weaponize them as “the model degenerate”.
That’s the new game.
Finally, & of specific interest to me we have Adrew Sabisky.
That was the obscure & bizarre “consultant” appointed to Boris Johnson’s government by Peter Thiel deposited minder – Dominic Cummings – who was swiftly forced to resign over a eugenics/race science post he had previously published.
This was a particularly pivotal moment in the escalation of depravity & absurdity of our politics.
Well, it seems that he never went away.
It’s hard to believe, but through Shukman’s reporting, we find that Sabisky had been lobbying then PM Rishi Sunak on nuclear deregulation (yes! Seriously) & god knows what else (Peter Thiel’s Palantir monstrosity would expand into British public institutions, including the NHS, via Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, & now, alarmingly – Keir Starmer’s government).
“Nobody knows about Andrew’s work. ‘We’re providing this secret service for number 10’, and trying to keep it as secret as possible’.”
with the assistance of another “special advisor” or “spad” called Will Dry, & a pressure group within the Labour government called Day One, Sabisky is now influencing the Starmer government (& considering it’s diabolical actions & policy, this is not surprising).
“Andrew’s claim, the night we met at dinner last year, that he was ‘well-networked’ was not bluster. Despite his defenestration from the government for supporting race science, he is back in politics, almost as powerful as before. It is baffling.”
Andrew Sabisky goes onto share his “dizzying” cabal of political contacts with Shukman, which includes, yep! – Peter Thiel (Thiel is also hyper-close/in business with the Labour peer & UK government’s US trade ambassador – Peter “Prince of Darkness” Mandelson – who was actually contracted through his private consultancy firm – Global Counsel – by Thiel to help penetrate British politics for Palantir – so “paid foreign influence”).
This is a mess of Biblical, mega, unsurpassable mega-corruption.
The one positive thing is the admission Andrew Sabisky imparts directly to Harry Shukman, which again, has to be one of the most revealing & clarifying of the age –
“You win in Britain through the long march through the institutions. Everyone puts on the mask and they get into the machine and that’s how it works. It’s how everything has ever worked, pretty much.”
statement of the century.
by-way-of companion phenomena that is heaved into sight by Shukman’s investigations, Year of the Rat becomes an incredibly salient writing on modern corruption & conspiracy, & the specialist “malmerit” super-currency that operates in squalid-silence over most professional fields, politics especially.
An outstanding investigation & writing.
& as for the abomination Peter Thiel & Palantir, his harsh reckoning simply cannot come soon enough.
Harry Shukman, 2025, Chato and Windus/Penguin, 300-pages.