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Undercover: Exposing the Far Right, review: unsettling investigation that plays like a spy thriller

Channel 4’s documentary uncovered the well-funded activists using discredited ‘race science’ to galvanise the far-Right

5/5
It tells you much about Undercover: Exposing the Far Right that it was due to premiere at the London Film Festival a few days ago but was pulled at the eleventh hour because of “perceived risks of disruption or harm to audiences or staff”. “We have spent two years following the brave and inspiring work done by Hope Not Hate in an extraordinarily febrile time,” director Havana Marking said. “It is shocking to see the extent of far-Right influence in both street-level and elite ‘intellectual’ circles’.”
Airing on Channel 4, the exposé showed the sheer volume of what Hope Not Hate, a relatively small, anti-fascist organisation, is up against. The headlines may usually be dominated by Britain First, Tommy Robinson and the recent Southport riots but the documentary went deeper. Using secret-camera footage to go far beyond anti-immigration issues, it showed the alarming prevalence of a new generation of well-funded and media-savvy influencers using discredited “race science” (the bogus claim that different races have different levels of intellect and that inequality comes from biology) to legitimise prejudice for a new, disenfranchised audience. As one far-Right activist is seen saying, “There’s a very strong fascist movement in Britain that no one knows about.”
A lot of what we saw was unsettling, but the film used these high stakes to create a throughline that read like a spy thriller. Harry Shukman, undercover as “Chris”, infiltrated meetings and groups with no more than a button cam and his wits. He admitted that it was exciting to do and it was exciting to watch, too, as Chris, palpably no Jason Bourne, put himself at considerable risk among some seemingly very dangerous people. When he said at the end that his days going undercover were over, it was a relief.
The documentary had all the ingredients in place for a rollicking story, then – tension, risk, relevance; a knife-edge investigation that intrigued till the end – but it was a well-made piece of television, too. Laced among the multiple revelations was just enough background on the Hope Not Hate founders and operatives to lend their crusade emotional heft. Founder Nick Lowles’s mother was Mauritian, and he grew up in early 1970s Britain with his mother often being racially abused in the street. Shukman’s Jewish grandparents were deported from Poland and gassed. On this evidence, it remains a soul-sapping, relentless struggle – thrilling to behold but chilling to contemplate.
4/5

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