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ABSTRACT
Why do some towns become focal points for anti-minority activism at particular moments in time, when other towns with similar socio-economic conditions do not? While policy practitioners charged with responding to such activity frequently ask this question, it has received less academic attention. Consequently, an adequate response falls between different strands of the academic literature on anti-minority politics.
We explore this question through a comparative analysis of how and why Luton, a Bedfordshire town, became a focal point for the latest wave of organised anti-minority activism in the UK, centred around the English Defence League (EDL), while Blackburn with Darwen, a local authority in Lancashire with a history of extreme right political ‘successes’, did not.
We develop the concept of situated credibility contests to help us articulate the contingent relationships between potential explanatory variables and political outcomes, and describe how ‘demand-side’ and ‘supply-side’ variables interact through the strategic actions of anti-minority activists and their opponents.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Special Interest Group (SIG) on Far Right Activity, which was sponsored by the then UK Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). The authors would like to acknowledge the support, collaboration and feedback of those involved in the research process in Luton and Blackburn, as well as the insightful comments on an earlier version of this article by two anonymous reviewers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. We use ‘anti-minority politics’ and ‘anti-minority activism’ as hypernyms to include all forms of activism explicitly targeting minority groups. It encompasses a broad range of ideologically distinct groups ranging from the ostensibly single-issue ‘anti-Muslim’ politics of the EDL to the racial nationalism of extreme right formations like the BNP and NF.
2. See for example analyses of how ‘discursive opportunities’ shape the trajectories of anti-minority politics (Koopmans & Muis, Citation2009).
3. A successor to the proscribed Al-Muhajiroun.
4. At several points, the EDL’s Facebook following exceeded 100,000.
5. Robinson’s real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
6. Financial and logistical constraints meant we were unable to extend beyond two case studies without compromising case study depth and detail.
7. The Special Interest Group on Far Right Activity, sponsored by the then UK Department for Communities and Local Government.
8. All demographic data is derived from the 2011 census.
9. The Residents’ Surveys are annual surveys run by professional market research companies subcontracted by each local authority.
10. Perhaps due to legal proceedings against prominent local activists taking place at the time.
11. A by-line used to promote subsequent EDL demonstrations in Luton.
12. The percentage of white UK-born residents who disagree that their local area is ‘a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together’ was in fact higher in Blackburn (23.8%) than in Luton (16.4%), although this might reflect a difference in how the question was worded in the respective surveys: in Blackburn it specified ‘Blackburn with Darwen’, while in Luton it was ‘your local area’.
13. See the BBC Panorama investigation ‘White Flight’, or the furore around Jack Straw, MP’s, comments about the veil (BBC, Citation2006). Blackburn has the most segregated minority population as a whole of any local authority in England and Wales (Luton is ranked 49th).
14. There is an annual myth, for which there is scant evidence, that councils across Britain consider re-branding Christmas festivities to avoid offending non-Christian communities (Allen, Citation2013).
15. The EDL’s association with public disorder has been identified as undermining support within low income white communities in other towns (Thomas et al., Citation2018). While Robinson was also associated with violence, there are important differences in the targeting and style of their violence: vaulting a barrier to punch somebody who has desecrated a national symbol is not equivalent to, for example, an unprovoked assault on anti-fascist activists.
16. Queens Park became a focus for EDL activities after an Asian-heritage teenager murdered Christopher Foulkes there in 2009. The EDL utilised the killing in their campaigns. In 2011, activists decided to ‘reclaim’ the park by playing football there on a pitch usually used by Asian-heritage youths. On one occasion, when a group of Asian-heritage youths arrived, arguments ensued, leading to the arrest of an EDL activist, who later pleaded guilty to using racially aggravated threatening behavior. The event replicated and amplified local grievance narratives. In court, the activists’ lawyer stated, ‘My client heard racist comments coming from the Asian males and he accepts that he responded. He says he can’t understand why the police officers seemed unable to hear the comments coming from the other side’ (Bellard, Citation2011).
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Notes on contributors
Joel Busher
Joel Busher is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR), Coventry University, UK. His primary research interests are in the social ecology of political violence and anti-minority politics, and the implementation of counter-terrorism policy and its societal impacts. His book, The Making of Anti-Muslim Protest (Routledge), was awarded the British Sociological Association’s Philip Abrams Memorial Prize. He tweets @joel_busher
Gareth Harris
Dr. Gareth Harris is an independent researcher affiliated to CTPSR, Coventry University, UK. His research focuses on social cohesion and community engagement, with expertise in the dynamics of mobilisation and anti-minority politics. He has published on demographic change and responses to it among majority populations. He is currently involved in several peer-to-peer networks designed to promote shared learning and good practice around building better community relations.
Graham Macklin
Dr. Graham Macklin is Assistant Professor/Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) at the University of Oslo, Norway. He has published extensively on fascist, extreme right-wing and anti-minority politics in Britain in both the inter-war and post-war periods. Routledge will publish his forthcoming monograph on the history of white racial nationalism in Britain in 2018. He co-edits the ‘Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right’ book series and tweets @macklin_gd