Ray Hill, the man who dominated the right for the left

British-born Ray Hill was an anti-racism campaigner whose was involved in far-right-wing politics in South Africa for 10 years, only he was a spy for the left.

Hill, who died on 14 May 2022 after being diagnosed with cancer a few weeks ago, became the first and possibly only non-Jewish honorary life president of England’s Union of Jewish Students (UJS).

He was one of the first people to speak out against growing Islamist antisemitism, according to www.jewishnews.co.uk. He staged rallies outside the luxurious home of Holocaust denier David Irving, and campaigned around England to hinder any chances of far-right electoral success.

Hill was also called as a witness before the European Parliament’s Commission on Racism and Xenophobia, to which he detailed a neo-Nazi underground system to hide far-right fugitives.

Born in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England, in 1939, Hill joined the army at 17, following in the footsteps of his father, according to review.gale.com.

After leaving the army in the early 1960s, Hill was living in Leicester when he came across an anti-immigration advert from the Racial Preservation Society (RPS). Although he had never shown an interest in politics before, he quickly became involved in the anti-immigration movement.

“It was right at the sort of beginning of the influx of immigrants [in England], particularly into Leicester,” Hill later recalled in his classically gruff Lancashire accent.

Attracted by the strong anti-immigration stance of the RPS, Hill joined the outfit and found himself drawn into the world of the far-right, becoming a member of Colin Jordan’s British Movement.

Hill’s wife, Glennis, who he married in June 1966, largely tolerated his political involvement. However, in late 1969, his arrest for actual bodily harm led to his disengagement and the couple’s decision to emigrate to South Africa, Hill mentioned in his book titled The Other Face of Terror.

“Nobody with much humanity about them can stay in South Africa for 10 years and not come to dislike apartheid,” he said. “It’s just so horrible. I mean people being arrested for falling in love. That sort of thing. Bloody awful.”

This and the fact that he became friendly with members of South Africa’s Jewish community resulted in him recanting his far-right views.

He wrote in The Times that it wasn’t a “Damascene conversion”, but “a gradual change in my attitudes caused by the people I was mixing with”.

So, when the National Front of South Africa formed in 1977, Hill joined the neo-fascist organisation, but as a mole. A Jewish friend of his asked him to report back on what he saw and heard.

Jewishnews.co.uk writes that he was so successful in his undercover work, he rose to chair the organisation.

In 1980, he returned to Leicester and was put in touch with Gerry Gable, the founder of Searchlight, who suggested that Hill should infiltrate the far-right in the United Kingdom on behalf of the anti-fascist magazine.

Hill went on to infiltrate the British Movement (BM), rising to leading roles within it. After clashing with leader Michael McLaughlin in 1982, Hill succeeded in splitting the party, according to The Other Face of Terror.

A former boxer in the army with a reputation as a street fighter, he had the support of the BM’s large skinhead following, and took them with him when he helped create the far-right, fascist British National Party (BNP) in 1982.

“I was at the foundation meeting of the BNP, sitting right next to [the founder] John Tyndall,” recounted Hill. “Every word of it was being recorded outside by Gerry Gable. We knew everything they [members of the BNP] did. Of course, it didn’t take long to work out that they had a mole at quite a high place, so they decided they were going to do something about this. They formed a security organisation under the leadership of a national officer of the party and its sole job was to root out any mole. Guess who the national officer was who they put in charge of this? Me.”

Hill publicly exposed himself as an infiltrator when he left the BNP five years later, according to review.gale.com. He faced repercussions – his caravan was once set on fire while his children slept inside it.

Hill devoted the rest of his life to anti-fascist work, giving talks that highlighted the dangers of the far-right.