Officers formed cordons to separate about 3,000 supporters of the English Defense League from hundreds of members of left-wing group Unite Against Fascism and Muslim organizations in Luton, a working-class town near London with a history of racial tension. Pubs were closed to prevent drunken trouble.The English Defense League says it is a non-racist group set up to oppose the spread of militant Islam. But at previous demonstrations its members have clashed with police, chanted anti-Muslim slogans and made Nazi salutes.One banner at Saturday’s march read “No more mosques.” Luton, 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of London, is a town of 200,000 with a large Muslim population and an unwanted reputation as a hotbed of extremism. There have been several terrorism arrests in the town in recent years, and it was the home of Taimour Abdulwahab, an Iraqi-born Swede who blew himself up in a Stockholm shopping street in December.The protest took place on the day prime Minister David Cameron made a speech at a security conference in Germany saying Britain and other European countries had been too tolerant of both Islamic extremism and far-right extremists.In a statement responding to Cameron’s speech, the local council and police said that in Luton there was only “a tiny handful of people — of a variety of backgrounds — who have a message of extremism and hate.” “But in Luton, most of us aim to live in harmony and we do just that most of the time,” it said.
