UK PM Starmer condemns Farage over response to Henry Nowak murder

Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for urging a response of “pure cold rage” to the murder of 17-year-old Henry Nowak, calling it “the wrong reaction” and saying the Nowak family “do not want this whipped up.”

Starmer said he felt “sick” watching body-cam footage of Nowak being handcuffed as he lay dying. “I have seen the body cam footage, it’s harrowing, and I have to say, as a father of a 17-year-old boy, I felt sick watching it,” he said in a pooled TV interview. Nowak was murdered by Vickrum Digwa.

“I start my answer to your question through the eyes of the family,” Starmer said. “They have said they do not want this whipped up. They have been through the most extraordinary, awful experience. They don’t want this whipped up, and Nigel Farage is completely wrong to use this to try and create division. He would be wrong in any circumstances, but when Henry’s family are saying, ‘Please don’t do that, it’s our son,’ then really, as politicians, as human beings, we should start where they start, and that’s where I start.”

Asked if he agreed with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch that there should be a Macpherson-style inquiry into whether the anti-racist culture in the police has gone too far, Starmer said he was not ruling that out. But he said the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) should be allowed to finish its inquiry into how officers handled the case first.

Home Secretary Seema Mahmood, responding in the House of Commons, said: “I don’t think this is a moment to pit white Britons against non-white Britons. This is a moment to reflect on a horrific tragedy.” She warned against over-correcting in response to the Nowak case, saying: “Whatever changes are made, it is important that nobody over-corrects or course-corrects such that all of us as citizens are no longer equal before the law.”

Robert Jenrick, Reform UK Treasury spokesperson, said the officer who handcuffed Nowak should be “prosecuted for a total dereliction of duty.” He claimed there was “a sickness rooted in the anti-racism agenda.”

Max Wilkinson, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson, told MPs that Farage was using tragedy “to divide British communities.” He said: “We all know why he does this. He’s made a career out of this and has become rich as a result. But we are also well aware, as he is, that his actions are divisive, dangerous and fundamentally and un-British.”

Labour MP Tan Dhesi condemned Reform UK for attacking the Sikh community over the kirpan, which was not used in the attack. “What’s very galling is that the likes of Reform, Restore and the far-right decided to politicise people’s pain, attacking the Sikh community for wearing the kirpan and wanting it banned – even though the kirpan was not used in this violent attack,” Dhesi told MPs.

Eleven Sikh Labour MPs issued a joint statement urging people not to allow the murder to “divide communities or fuel hostility towards innocent people.” The letter, organised by Jas Athwal, chair of the all-party parliamentary group for British Sikhs, said: “Henry Nowak was brutally murdered in a senseless act of violence by Vickrum Digwa. The Sikh community stands with Henry’s family and friends as they come to terms with his loss. We share the grief, shock and anger at his murder and stand with his family in the pursuit of truth and justice. We urge people to not allow the actions of this one murderer to divide communities and fuel hostility towards innocent people.”