Neo-Nazi and white supremacist Kevin Wilshaw, who until recently was a member in good standing of the British National Party (BNP) and an organizer for the National Front, on Tuesday told British Channel 4 News that he is, actually, the homosexual son of a Jewish mother.
Wilshaw, 58, told Channel 4 News about the acts of violence and racism he had committed, such as crushing a chair over a man’s head in Leeds and vandalizing a mosque in Aylsbury – about which he felt “appallingly guilty.” He said he joined the BNP because he “didn’t have many friends at school” and “wanted to be a member of a group of people that had an aim.”
“Even though you end up being a group of people that through their own extreme views are cut off from society, you do have a sense of comradeship in that you’re a member of a group that’s being attacked by other people,” Wilshaw related, adding that now he is committed to publicly renounce the UK far-right movement he once called home.
He talked about his mother, who was “part Jewish, maiden name was Benjamin, we have Jewish blood on that side.” In the past, Wilshaw wrote how much he hated “the Jews.”
“That term, ‘the Jews,’ is the global faceless mass of people you can’t personalize it, not individuals. That’s the generalization that leads to six million people being deliberately murdered,” he told Channel 4 News.
What turned him around, he confessed, was the way his own extremist brothers (and sisters) were treating him for being gay. “It’s a terribly selfish thing to say but it’s true, I saw people being abused, shouted at, spat at in the street – it’s not until it’s directed at you that you suddenly realize that what you’re doing is wrong,” he recalled.
Finally, Wilshaw said he wanted “to do some damage as well, not to ordinary people but the people who are propagating this kind of rubbish – want to hurt them, show what it’s like for those who are living a lie and be on the receiving end of this type of propaganda.”