Violent protests erupted in Southampton on Tuesday after bodycam footage showed police handcuffing 18-year-old Henry Nowak as he lay dying, stabbed by Vickrum Digwa. But as the city burned, Henry’s father Mark Nowak had been clear outside court after Digwa was sentenced: “This is not a case about Sikhism. This is not a case about racism. This is a case about murder.” The family asked that Henry’s death not be used to create “further division, hatred or tension”. That appeal has been ignored by those who claim to speak in his name.
US vice-president JD Vance posted on X that Nowak had died “the same way a civilisation dies: abandoned and handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him”. He blamed the killing on the “mass invasion of migrants” and said the “only response” was “righteous anger”. Downing Street hit back, a spokesman saying the Nowak family “said they do not want his death to be used to create further division”. The statement added: “Our politics should bring people together even in the most terrible of circumstances. That is who we are as a country.”
“Downing Street criticises JD Vance after he blamed Henry Nowak's murder on migration, as the family's plea to avoid division is ignored.”
The Minister for Children and Families, Josh MacAlister, also criticised Vance on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions programme. “There are people who are trying to import that kind of toxic politics here into the UK and I don’t want to have anything to do with it,” he said. “I don’t think we need advice from American politicians... [on] how to have effective policing here in the UK,” he added.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for an “independent rapid review” into the circumstances surrounding Nowak’s death. In a letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, she wrote: “The questions raised about what followed are of profound public importance. They concern not only what happened to Henry but overall public confidence in policing.”
The Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed that Digwa, who used a 21cm (8in) blade he said he carried as part of his Sikh faith to kill Nowak on 3 December, was born British. Digwa was jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years after falsely claiming to be the victim of a racist attack – a lie the judge called “wicked”. The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating police behaviour, and an inquest jury will consider next year whether “any act or omission by police officers” or delay in treatment contributed to the death.
But the local tragedy has been turned into a transatlantic morality tale. Nigel Farage called for “pure, cold rage”. Elon Musk claimed “official police policy requires racism against whites”. The US State Department declared that “ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing” were symptoms of “civilizational decline”. At the Munich Security Conference, Marco Rubio gave that order its doctrine: a fortified “West” built on border discipline, civilisational grievance and imperial nostalgia. The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy calls for restoring Europe’s “civilizational self-confidence and Western identity”. Britain is addressed not as an equal, but as a provincial outpost of the imperial system, permanently available for correction.