Nigel Farage has peddled “white lives matter” and “two-tier culture” lines following the death of student Henry Nowak.
18-year-old Nowak was stabbed to death by Vickrum Digwa, 23, in Southampton in December last year whilst he was walking home alone after a night out.
Digwa used a 21cm (8in) blade he said he carried as part of his Sikh faith, called a Kirpan, and this week was given a life sentence with a minimum of 21 years over the stabbing.
The case has attracted particular controversy though over the response of police. When police arrived at the scene, they handcuffed Nowak as he lay dying after Digwa claimed he had been racially abused by the teen and had acted in self-defence.
Nowak tells officers he has been stabbed and “can’t breathe” multiple times, before becoming unresponsive after a couple of minutes.
Hampshire police has apologised and the force’s Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones described the incident as a “national tragedy”.
Never one to miss an opportunity to stoke up tensions with inflammatory comments though, Reform leader Nigel Farage has decided to weigh in on matters.
In an ’emergency address to the nation’ broadcast on X, Farage compared the tragedy to the death of George Floyd in the US in May 2020.
Farage asked why there was not a similar level of outrage from politicians and the public to Nowak’s death as there had been to Floyd’s.
“What does he [Nowak] say? ‘I can’t breathe.’ Familiar words? Remember career criminal George Floyd who died in appalling circumstances in mid-West America a few years ago. Remember the reaction to that and the way the police behaved. Within a few days Keir Starmer was taking the knee, black lives matter exploded all over the country, Churchill’s statue was defaced, the cenotaph was vandalised. And yet what has the public reaction been from our leaders and politicians and indeed much of the media to this? Absolute silence.” | Nigel Farage
Farage claimed this was proof that “we are living in a two-tier culture in this country where the rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities.”
The Clacton MP went on to predictably parrot lines about mass immigration, hate speech laws, a “DEI [diversity, equity, inclusion] agenda,” and “positive discrimination.”
🚨 WATCH: Nigel Farage says the bodycam footage of Henry Nowak is “proof of two tier policing”
“The rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities” pic.twitter.com/F2qUlG49on
Farage concluded his broadcast by saying that the “most important thing that needs to change” in Britain is “we need a change in culture.
“Enough of anti-white prejudice,” he said. “A promotion of the idea that white lives matter just as much as black lives. An end to DEI and positive discrimination.”
“I fear for where our society will be in a few short years if we don’t grip this,” he added.
These are of course lines that sound very similar to narratives peddled by Donald Trump and his administration in the US, along with Elon Musk on X, who has shared several posts about the case.
It may also be an attempt by Farage to win back voters tempted by Rupert Lowe’s hard-right Restore Britain.
Either way, it’s not language or messaging that is going to do anything to calm tensions brewing against ethnic and religious minorities in the UK.
During an appearance on Good Morning Britain Tory chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng – and Farage’s crypto business partner – said the Reform leader had ‘politicised’ Nowak’s death.
Journalist Kevin Maguire accused Farage of “race-baiting.”
Kwasi Kwarteng says Nigel Farage is politicising the death of Henry Nowak Kevin Maguire says the Reform leader is race baiting.
The Sikh Federation has said Digwa’s crime has led to their community being “demonised,” and that the blade used by the killer was not a Kirpan.
Dabinderjit Singh, a leading figure in the UK Sikh Federation, told the BBC: “Given the political environment, that rhetoric has made Sikhs really think ‘why are we being targeted’.
“Because this could happen to any community – an individual could break the law and murder someone but you wouldn’t demonise that entire community.”
“This is not about the Sikh community and its religion, this is about one individual, and trying to get that across in the current political environment has proved really difficult,” he said.
