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Hello, I'm Matthew Price and this is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4.

Every day we ask one big question about one big story.

Today, how can a town beat the extremists?

When you talk about the far right you inevitably end up talking about Luton and when you talk

about Luton you talk about a man called Stephen Yaxley Lennon. Now you might know him better as Tommy Robinson and

we're going to get to the whole Tommy myth in a bit. Stephen Yaxley

Lennon is from Luton and over the last decade he's used the town as a base from which

to get out his anti-Islam messages.

In fact he's just been taken down from Facebook and Instagram for repeatedly breaking their policies on hate speech.

They've now permanently banned him from the platforms.

We're going to find out about what happened in Luton to create Tommy Robinson and also what's happening there now to try and

erase his influence.

The BBC doesn't have a Tommy Robinson correspondent, but if it did, Dominic Cashioni would get the the job he's a reporter here who's been

fascinated with Tommy or Stephen if you prefer since he first came across him 10 years

ago almost to the day. The thing is about Luton is for many years it's been a focus

of a loss of interest in the developments of extremism and there was one moment

back in March 2009 you know 10 years ago where an event in Luton really defined a lot of the hidden

tensions which were really beginning to develop, particularly around the fear

of Islamist extremism and jihadism and how people should respond to it.

The Royal Anglian regiments had come home from Afghanistan after doing a tour and they were

doing a homecoming parade through Luton Town Center, so people coming

...