Sir Keir Starmer has accused Elon Musk of “trying to whip up division” over the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, as the fallout from the killing continued to spread across the country.
The prime minister’s remarks came after violent protests erupted in Southampton following the release of bodycam footage showing police handcuffing Nowak as he lay dying. His killer, Vickrum Digwa, had claimed he was the victim of a racist attack. The footage sparked a wave of political reaction and prompted Musk, the owner of X, to post repeatedly criticising the police treatment of the teenager.
“Starmer accused Elon Musk of whipping up division after violent protests over the murder of Henry Nowak.”
“Send the video to everyone you know showing how heinously Nowak was treated by the police in his dying moments and how the police cravenly kowtowed to his murderer,” Musk wrote on Tuesday. “Legacy mainstream media, same ones who wrote about George Floyd millions of times, are dead silent about Nowak.” Floyd died after a police officer knelt on his neck, sparking global protests.
Speaking in York on Thursday, Starmer accused Musk of interfering in British politics and stressed that Nowak’s grieving family had appealed for calm. “Musk, again, has been interfering in our politics in the last few days, trying to whip up division – that is not who we are in Britain,” he said. “In Britain, we are reasonable, tolerant people. When we have a terrible case like Henry’s case, we react calmly, as his family have done.”
The Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ed Davey, went further, describing Musk’s actions as “a coordinated campaign of foreign interference in British democracy by a rogue American tech billionaire who seems hellbent on injecting poison directly into our domestic politics.” He added that Musk had “repeatedly used his platform to incite violence on Britain’s streets.”
Meanwhile, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who met Nowak’s family on Thursday, posted on X that they had asked for cross-party work to rebuild trust in the police. “That trust has been broken because of what happened,” she wrote, adding that religious practices or exemptions that permit the carrying of knives must be examined carefully.
At a peaceful vigil outside Portswood Police Station, a small crowd gathered for speeches, songs and a three-minute silence in Nowak’s honour. Some knelt, mirroring the George Floyd protests, and shouted “racist police, off our streets”. The vigil came after earlier unrest that saw 14 people charged with violent disorder, with bricks, fence panels, industrial bins, chairs and traffic cones thrown at police.
Before the vigil began, a woman appealed for calm: “I must stress we are not here for trouble. If you’re here for trouble, leave now.” But a father asked the crowd to raise their hands if they did not trust the government, and many did. “That’s my message to the government. We don’t trust you one bit,” he said.
A woman named Mandy told the crowd: “To watch that video was one of the most awful things to see, that someone’s child was treated that way. He was treated like a piece of meat like it didn’t matter.” She called for a “total upheaval” of the police and ended by shouting an expletive at Starmer, which the crowd repeated.
Since Digwa was sentenced on Monday, attacks on Sikhs have taken place “up and down the country” every day, according to Dabinderjit Singh, a senior executive at the Sikh Federation. Speaking at a march marking the 42nd anniversary of the storming of the Golden Temple, he said Digwa had used a ceremonial knife carried as part of his Sikh religion. “We understand the anger,” Singh said. “We were just as angry with the police officers, and obviously Digwa … but unfortunately, every single day since Monday, Sikhs up and down the country have been assaulted. Children, men, women, pensioners.”