A prominent Neo-Nazi has come out as gay and disavowed his violent past.

White supremacist campaigner Kevin Wilshaw became a prominent figure in the UK’s fascist National Front during the 1980s, also joining the British National Party.

But Wilshaw, who has been actively involved in Neo-Nazism across four decades, disavowed the movement as he came out as gay today.

In an interview with Channel 4 News, Wilshaw spoke about his sexuality for the first time, and said homophobic abuse led him to give up his work.

He said: “On one or two occasions in the recent past I’ve actually been the recipient of the very hatred of the people I want to belong to.

“If you’re gay it is acceptable in society but with these group of people it’s not acceptable, and I found on one or two occasions when I was suspected of being gay I’d been the subject of abuse.”

Wilshaw said he had come into contact with extreme homophobes during his time on the far-right, including David Copeland – the terrorist who killed three people and injured more than 70 when he set off a nail bomb in London’s Admiral Duncan pub in 1999.

The long-time white supremacist also revealed that he has a Jewish background, admitting his heritage and sexuality “contradicted” his public beliefs. He had claimed to “hate Jews” on his application form.

Wilshaw said: “It’s a terribly selfish thing to say but it’s true, I saw people being abused, shouted at, spat at in the street, but it’s not until it’s directed at you that you suddenly realise that what you’re doing is wrong.”

He added: “Their whole acceptance of me was false.”

Wilshaw said he was not the only gay man in the movement.

He said: “The strange thing about it is you had [an anti-gay] platform, but you have other members leading National Front who are overtly gay. And nobody could see the contradiction of it that you have an overtly gay person leading a homophobic organisation, makes no sense.”

He added: “Then you have someone like Nicky Crane, one of the hardest people who would be gay.

“Even when people found out, they’d rationalise it, ‘He’s not really gay’ or ‘gay and OK’. The reason they didn’t say anything is he would have killed them.”

Explaining why he was opening up, he added: “I want to do damage to the people propagating this sort of propaganda. I want to hurt them.”

Neo-Nazi groups recently came out to campaign against equal marriage in Australia.

The Australian Traditional Nationalist Group, which claims to “advocate the protection of white identity and the Traditional Western values rooted in Christian and Pagan traditions”, was behind an anti-gay marriage campaign.

Their posters say: “Mothers and fathers love is irreplacable” and “traditional marriage must be protected”.

The group bragged about their posters online in a Facebook video which quotes British fascist Oswald Mosely.

The video is titled Tomorrow Belongs To Us, a reference to fictional Nazi anthem Tomorrow Belongs To Me from the musical Cabaret – which has been adopted by global neo-Nazis despite being written by a Jewish gay man.