‘A pack of lies’: Luton rejects Tory MP’s claim that town has ‘no-go zones’
Faith and community leaders and the local police force all rubbished Blake Stephenson’s allegation, made at the Conservative Party Conference
Community organisers, faith leaders and police in Luton have rejected claims by a Conservative shadow Home Office minister that there are “zones” in the town where “white people won’t go”, with some warning that the claims are racist and risk fuelling division.
Blake Stephenson, the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, made the comments at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on Monday, where he described Luton as a “very dangerous place” with “no-go zones” where some communities were living in “ghettoes”.
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Stephenson, who was appointed to the opposition frontbench in September, suggested police would support his description of the town.
But people who have lived and worked in Luton for decades have condemned his remarks.
Rehana Faisal, chair of Luton-based youth charity the Raise Up Foundation — which offers support, guidance and training programmes to young people — described Stephenson’s claims as “ridiculous”.
“There are parts of Luton that are potentially run down that we wish had a bit more investment in them,” she said. “There are parts of the town where, maybe late at night, people might feel unsafe, but I don’t think that’s particularly different from any other town or city in England.”
Faisal, who has lived in Luton for more than 20 years, said she believed references to supposed “no-go zones” were often implicitly aimed at Bury Park, which has a large Muslim and South Asian population.
“Bury Park is being represented as only having South Asians or Muslims living in it, and I think that’s what these narratives rely on,” she said. “They rely on casting certain groups of people as dangerous and therefore you can’t go into those places.”
Faisal pointed to Luton Town football matches, when fans regularly walk through Bury Park, park there and stop at its restaurants. “It’s demonstrably false,” she said of the “no-go zone” claim, describing it as a “dog whistle”.
According to the 2021 census, 32.9% of Luton’s population identified as Muslim, while 37% identified as Asian, 10.1% as Black and 45.2% as white.
Glenn Jenkins, a community organiser with grassroots group Marsh Farm Outreach, said Stephenson’s comments were “a pack of lies”.
“I’m sick of it,” he said. “We’ve got Bury Park, the eastern European community, the locals, all of us, Luton is a melting pot. To say that there are no-go zones where white people can’t go, it’s just a horrible lie.”
Jenkins warned that such claims risked being repeated more widely, particularly by the far right, fuelling divisions between communities.
“Lutonians, I’m counting all of us — Black, white, Asian, everybody — know better than that,” he said. “They know that we interact and get on and work together and trade together.”
Jenkins invited Stephenson to visit Luton and speak to the people who live there.
Rev Dr Luke Larner of St Andrews Church in Luton agreed and said the narrative that parts of Luton are off-limits to white people is “completely ridiculous”.
“I’m walking around in these communities, very clearly dressed as a Christian priest all the time. I’ve never had an issue,” he said. “I’m often treated with respect as a faith leader in this community.”
Larner, who lives and works in the greater Bury Park area, said Stephenson’s remarks drew on “racist narratives and particularly Islamophobic narratives” about Luton that had long circulated on the far right.
Similar claims about the town have previously been made by Luton-born far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson.
Larner warned that political leaders and far-right actors legitimising such narratives “is fanning those flames of division”.
“A lot of us work very hard to build community cohesion and mutual understanding in the town,” he said. “To have comments made like this in the public sphere by a leader really is undermining the work that we’re doing.”
He added that the discussion was also distracting from questions of class and deprivation, noting that poorer parts of Luton with large Muslim communities are often talked about differently to wealthier areas of the town with similarly diverse populations.
“What we actually have here in Luton is an issue of class justice. We have working-class people who are struggling.”
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His comments come after more than 200 people took part in Luton’s 30th annual Peace Walk, which travelled between St Mary’s Church, Guru Nanak Gurdwara and Luton Central Mosque, bringing together residents from different faiths and backgrounds.
Bedfordshire Police have also rejected the suggestion that there are “no-go” areas in its patch, which includes Luton. Chief Constable Trevor Rodenhurst said: “We don’t have a single street in Bedfordshire that’s a no-go area for policing or the public.”
Responding to criticism of his comments, Stephenson told Hyphen his remarks had been made in response to a Luton resident who had raised the issue with him and said they reflected “a reality that many people now feel that parts of the town are unwelcoming and unsafe” and that “we shouldn’t sugarcoat that”.
Faisal, Jenkins and Larner have joined other local figures in calling on Stephenson to apologise for his remarks.
“Part of the intent is to disrupt the cohesion of the town. It’s to take away that sense we have of looking after each other and to pit us against each other, and that’s wrong,” said Faisal.
