The Trump administration has called for an end to “two-tier” policing in the UK in the wake of Henry Nowak’s murder, in comments likely to infuriate Sir Keir Starmer’s government.
In a post on X, the US state department wrote: “Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilisational decline. They must be rejected across the West.
“The United States sends our condolences to the family of Henry Nowak and the people of the United Kingdom at this troubling time.”
Bodycam footage from the night Mr Nowak was fatally stabbed by Vickrum Digwa shows that police handcuffed the 18-year-old as he lay on the ground, despite his repeated pleas that he could not breathe, after his killer falsely claimed he had been the victim of a racist attack. He died shortly after.
The fact that he was handcuffed, despite repeatedly saying he had been stabbed, sparked claims from Reform and the Conservatives that the UK has a “two-tier” police system that favours ethnic minorities.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage argued that Mr Nowak’s death echoed the 2020 murder of George Floyd in the United States and called for “an end to DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] and positive discrimination”. Mr Floyd’s death sparked global Black Lives Matter protests and scrutiny of racial injustice in policing across the US.
Following Mr Nowak’s death, Mr Farage also called for the public to respond with “pure, cold rage” which led to violent protests near where the student was murdered.
Sir Keir accused Mr Farage of exploiting the horrific murder and said the Reform leader’s actions were “unforgivable”. The PM accused Mr Farage of only pretending to sympathise with the teenager’s family, who had specifically appealed for their son’s death not to be used to create division.
The Labour leader also hit out at Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, accusing the X owner of “interfering in our politics” and trying to “whip up division” after Musk shared several social media posts on the case.
One of them included a video from far-right activist Tommy Robinson, in which he claims Mr Nowak was “murdered by racist police policies that target white people”.
“We also need to assert who we are as a country, because Musk again has been interfering in our politics in the last few days, trying to whip up division,” said Sir Keir.
“That is not who we are in Britain. In Britain we are reasonable, tolerant people. When we have a terrible case like Henry’s case, Henry Nowak, we react calmly, as his family has done.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly been critical of the UK government over its immigration policies with US vice president JD Vance urging anti-immigration activists to “keep on going” after tens of thousands attended a London rally last month.
Vance said there is “this idea that the way to generate prosperity is to bring in millions and millions of unvetted people and drop them into your neighbourhoods”.
Meanwhile, Trump unleashed an extraordinary tirade at the United Nations in New York in September last year, saying Britain and Europe are “going to hell” because of immigration and dismissing climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”.
Mr Nowak’s family have also called on politicians to rebuild trust in the police as they stressed they “do not want anger to tear communities apart” in the wake of their son’s murder.
In a meeting with Kemi Badenoch, Mr Nowak’s mother, father and stepmother agreed that the UK needs to “bring common sense back” to policing and how equality is treated under the law.
HM Inspectorate of Constabulary has “agreed in principle” to conduct an inspection of the “culture and performance” of Hampshire police, following a request by the county’s police and crime commissioner Donna Jones.
It will be the second investigation into the force and will go further than the inquiry by the Independent Office for Police Misconduct which is investigating if the officers breached rules.
