(A supporter of the English Defence League gestures during a demonstration in Luton, February 5, 2011. REUTERS/Paul Hackett)
Shouting taunts and trading expletives, a Muslim teenager and the leader of Britain’s most prominent anti-Islam nationalist group are seconds from a fight.
“Why are you talking to this racist?” the youth asks a reporter walking with English Defense League leader Stephen Lennon in Luton, the British town cited as “war zone” with Islam by Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik at his trial.
As a group of Muslim youngsters surrounds Lennon, another starts a heated discussion with him about Islamic religious law.
Onlookers, fearful of trouble, peer out from down-at-heel shops in this small city in rural Bedfordshire, 35 miles north of London, where the industries that once drew in large numbers of Asian immigrant workers have seen better days.
