A shadow Conservative Home Office minister has claimed there are "no-go zones" in Luton where "white people won't go".
Blake Stephenson, the MP for Mid Bedfordshire who was appointed to the Tory frontbench role two weeks ago, claimed the town was "a very dangerous place" where some communities "live in ghettoes".
His comments, made at a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference, mirror claims by far-right activists including from the terrorist mass murderer Anders Breivik, who have also said Luton has "no-go zones". These claims have been denied by the local police force as well as local Muslim and Christian groups.
Speaking at a Centre for Policy Studies meeting in Birmingham, Stephenson claimed to know Luton well because he lives in a neighbouring constituency. "I know Luton reasonably well because I live 10, 15 minutes away and represent Mid Bedfordshire, I live in a village just over the border.
"I think the town is a shadow of its former self. There are parts of that town – and unfortunately the police will tell you this – it can be a very dangerous place. There are parts where white people won't go. They are like no-go zones. It is not alone, there are other towns across the country in a similar situation. It is dreadful where we have got to.
"But we can move on from it but it requires deep levels of integration and we need to break apart these, erm … this is where it gets icky, but we need to make sure we don't have ghettoes where there are no-go zones for anybody. The country is for all of us not just certain communities," he said.
"It does get icky for some people, but I think there is a consensus, certainly on the right, that mass migration has been an absolute disaster.
"So it's up to us to put a plan together and deliver. We've got the borders plan. You know, some of that may feel a bit icky for some people, but we've got to face into it, lean into it," he said.
In a statement delivered to court in Oslo in 2012, Breivik asked his audience to look at Luton "and the more than 1,000 Islamic no-go zones where police do not dare pass through". The city was, he said, living in "warlike conditions".
Bedfordshire police said in a statement at the time that "no-go areas do not exist in Bedfordshire".
Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, co-founded the far-right English Defence League in Luton in 2009, and claimed there were "no-go zones" for white people in the town.
Stephenson, who was elected as an MP in 2024, studied industrial relations with politics at the University of Kent, followed by law at the University of Law in Guildford. He was called to the bar in 2007.
He was appearing at a fringe meeting entitled From Boriswave to Brain Drain: How Can We Fix Migration?
Earlier in the discussion, Stephenson said the Equalities Act had created a framework where "white young men" were being discriminated against, and claimed the government was reserving internships for racial minorities.
"You know, equality should be equality for all. It's a fairly, fairly simple concept, but it's actually become quite a complicated construct. And the people that are losing out are white young men," he said.
He claimed that some government schemes did not allow young white men to apply. "I'm not surprised that young white men feel like the system is rigged against them, particularly with the government coming out with schemes that won't allow them to apply for internships. That is state-sponsored racism and it needs to stop," he said.
The Conservative party has been approached for comment.
Sarah Owen, the Labour MP for Luton North, said: "It is deeply irresponsible for any politician, let alone a senior Conservative, to peddle the same rightwing nonsense about Luton that we see from the likes of Yaxley-Lennon and Reform.
"It is simply untrue and the shadow Home Office minister should get off social media and get to know the fantastic Lutonians I'm proud to represent and call my neighbours. I'd also call on the new Lib Dem/Tory/Green coalition-run council in Luton to disown these comments from their colleague."