Nigel Farage accused of ‘whipping people up’ with response to Henry Nowak murder

Nigel Farage has called for a response of ‘pure, cold rage’ to the murder of Henry Nowak, blaming the 18-year-old’s death on a culture of ‘anti-white prejudice’.

The student was stabbed to death in December by 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, who used a knife he said he carried as a part of his Sikh faith.

In bodycam footage released yesterday, police officers – who had been told Digwa was the victim of a racist attack – can be seen handcuffing Henry in his final moments.

When the teenager tells the officers he has been stabbed, one asks him to show where then says: ‘I don’t think you have, mate.’

Hampshire Police has apologised to his family, who called his treatment ‘inhumane and degrading’ and said they would be carrying their grief ‘every single day’.

The incident has drawn shock and condemnation across the political spectrum, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer writing on X: ‘We must end the cycle of tragedy by tackling the horror of knife crime.’

Speaking outside court yesterday, Henry’s father said: ‘We do not want Henry’s murder to be used to create further hatred, division or tension.’

But in a video posted on social media this morning, Farage focused firmly on race, saying the police officers represented a system where the ‘rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities’.

The Reform UK leader said Henry had been ‘treated in a way that meant an accusation of a racial slur was treated more seriously than an act of murder’.

He continued: ‘We need a change in culture. Enough of anti-white prejudice.

‘A promotion of the idea that white lives matter just as much as black lives.’

Reform MP Suella Braverman, who defected from the Conservatives in January, retweeted the video with the caption: ‘White lives matter.’

The controversial slogan ‘white lives matter’ sprang up in opposition to the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protest movement, in an effort to dilute its focus on police brutality against Black people.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch suggested Farage was ‘whipping people up’ and ‘making them angry’ with his statement in an appearance on Good Morning Britain.

She said: ‘I don’t want to hear about Black Lives Matter, I don’t want to hear about white lives matter. We all matter.

‘Enough of this nonsense where we keep separating everybody and splitting people into different groups. We are descending into tribalism.

‘What I do not like is seeing Nigel Farage jump on this issue when he doesn’t do any work, he doesn’t turn up to Parliament, he doesn’t take things seriously but he sees this as an opportunity to grandstand.’

Others have said more stringent restrictions on religious blades are needed in response to the murder.

Donna Jones, the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), has written to the Prime Minister calling for an ‘urgent review on the carrying of bladed articles for religious and ceremonial purposes’.

She told BBC News: ‘At the moment in this country, Vickrum Digwa carrying that knife, it was lawful for him to do that as long as he carried it in a sheath, which he did, as a Sikh gentlemen he is able to carry that knife.

‘While the Sikh Federation have come out and condemned what he did and said that wasn’t a Kirpan – a much smaller knife carried around the neck – the one that Digwa was carrying was a longer, bigger knife.

‘I think we need greater clarity, that’s why I have written to the Prime Minister.’

In an appearance on Newsnight, Labour MP and former police officer Jonathan Hinder said the behaviour of the officers in the video was ‘unfathomable’.

He said: ‘The most troubling thing about that video for me was the apparent indifference, the casual nature with which the police officer says, “I don’t think you have, mate.”

‘It’s really upsetting to hear. And I think police officers across the country, former police officers like myself, will be as upset as anyone watching that footage.’

Judge William Mousley KC, in his sentencing remarks, said the officers had ‘honestly believed that there were reasonable grounds for suspecting Henry had committed an offence’ due to Digwa’s lies.

He continued: ‘It is the experience of the criminal courts that sometimes, someone arrested and handcuffed will feign injury in the hope they may be released.

‘These police officers were faced with having to make quick decisions in pressurised circumstances about the best way to act.’

Digwa was sentenced to life in prison for a minimum of 21 years.

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