One of Britain’s most multicultural towns, long tainted by extremist links, is increasingly seeking to celebrate its identity despite a heated immigration debate and US President Donald Trump’s warning that Europe risks “civilizing erasure” by immigrants.
Luton, north of London, is one of the few towns in Britain with a majority non-white population. An estimated 150 languages and dialects are spoken in this town of 230,000 people.
Notorious far-right provocateur Tommy Robinson and misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate are from the town, which faces court cases in the UK and Romania and about a third of its residents are Muslim.
Both men’s stories deal with poverty and the struggle for community cohesion in Luton and its post-industrial era. Robinson in particular presented himself as a homegrown resister of “Islamic extremism.”
Some of the jihadists behind the UK attacks have links to the town. But now that Robinson, 43, and Tait, 39, a self-described misogynist, are nowhere to be seen, residents have abandoned their divisive beliefs and defended Luton’s diversity.
“The non-loving energy and spirit of Tommy and Andrew… is absolutely not representative of Luton,” lifelong resident Glenn Jenkins, 62, told AFP at a community space he founded.
Among other things, it houses a music studio near Marsh Farm, a once notoriously impoverished public housing complex where the American-born Tate grew up. He called it “the worst part of the worst town.”
“Luton is highly multicultural and that’s one of its gems,” added Jenkins.
-“Negative News”-
Luton, known for its airport that serves budget airlines and a football team whose fortunes have been miraculous, has been an industrial town for centuries.
Its factories were once famous for hat manufacturing and later for automobile manufacturing.
But like many places it faces the loss of heavy industry, and some of its communities are among the most deprived in the UK.
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, first came to national attention in 2009 when he formed the now-defunct far-right English Defense League (EDL) there.
Earlier, Islamist demonstrators held anti-war protests during a march of soldiers returning from Iraq. Seven Muslim men from Luton have appeared in court accusing soldiers of being rapists, murderers and baby killers.
The following years saw frequent clashes between the town’s EDL, counter-protesters and police, and a lot of what locals call “bad press”.
Backed by X owner Elon Musk, Robinson attracted 150,000 people to the UK’s largest-ever far-right march in London in September.
But Luton has large Irish and Eastern European heritage communities and a large Anglo-South Asian population, and leaders say they have made efforts at cohesion and are succeeding.
“We are a peace seminar,” Peter Adams, a lay member of the Anglican Church of St Mary for nearly two decades, told AFP.
-“Two different ways”-
The town council has long been controlled by Labour, with the centre-left ruling party holding two parliamentary seats.
Amy Nicholls was nominated as Mayor of Luton earlier this year aged just 30, making her the city’s youngest mayor and the first from the LGBTQ community.
But far-right Reform Britain, led by populist Nigel Farage, is leading in national opinion polls and may be making progress. It almost won the recent by-election for local government seats.
Former Labor and current Conservative MP Aslam Khan said the Reform Party raised legitimate concerns about “illegal immigration” but accused the party of “demonizing certain communities” such as his own traditional Pakistani Muslim community.
“It is deeply unfair to criticize, stigmatize and demonize a community,” he told AFP.
Khan and others believe an economic regeneration plan – including a 1.7 billion pound ($2.3 billion) city center revamp and repurposing the former Vauxhall car factory – is the best way to counter far-right rhetoric.
But Tricia, 75, whose family has lived there for generations, told AFP: “You feel like a foreigner in your own town.”
“I think British people are being driven out across the country,” she said beneath a First World War memorial bearing the names of relatives.
Perhaps tellingly, Tricia noted that her views were not shared by her adult sons and denied their accusations of racism.
For Jenkins, “two different views of the world” are playing out in Luton and beyond.
“I know some people who love Tommy, they’re my friends and my brothers — I grew up with them — but they’re in the minority,” he said.
He insists that in this multicultural town “people cross cultural barriers every day”.
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