Henry Nowak’s family have pleaded that his murder could not be used to incite hatred in the United Kingdom.
But key figures from the British right appear determined to start another war on race no matter what.
Nwak, an 18-year-old university student, was studying finance in the coastal city of Southampton when he was stabbed to death in December 2025.
After his killer was jailed for life this week, Hampshire police released CCTV footage showing officers arresting a terminally ill teenager as he ignored calls for help.
Instead, they initially believed her attacker, Vickrum Digwa, 23, who is a Sikh. She lied that Nowak had racially abused her and beaten her.
Violent protests erupted in Southampton, UK, over police body camera footage showing the death of 18-year-old Henry Nowak in December 2025. The video shows Nowak being handcuffed by police after the man who stabbed him falsely accused him of a racist attack.
‘white complaint’
Prominent anti-immigrant figures and members of the UK political party have slammed the release of the video, saying it shows British police are discriminating against white people by having lenient laws on racists.
“It is now becoming clear to growing millions in this country that we live under a two-tier police force,” said Reform UK leader Nigel Farage during debates in the British House of Commons on Wednesday.
“The instructions given to the police from the police chiefs are clear and written in ink. They say that you must treat different races in different ways.”
Anger over revelations about Nowak’s death led to violence on the streets of the young man’s hometown, injuring 11 police officers overnight in Southampton on Tuesday.
Addressing a crowd in town, Tommy Robinson, one of Britain’s most outstanding remote locations Activists, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, focused his speech on white grievance.
“This is about race,” he said. “As white people, we are treated as inferior citizens by our police.”
After his words, hundreds of protestors approached Digwa’s house and tried to break the police lines, shooting at the police and their cars with flames, glass, bottles and other things.
“What you’ve seen … is a long-term narrative of ‘white grievance’ that has really permeated politics here,” said Aaron Winter, a Canadian-born academic and sociologist at Lancaster University.
Winter said the narrative of white people being disadvantaged or “taken over” by immigrants or people of different races continues to fuel many important debates in contemporary Britain.
“It was at the heart of Brexit, of anti-immigrant politics, of the so-called ‘left behind white working class’,” he told CBC News.
Winter said the right-wing political party Reform UK is taking perceived injustice as an opportunity to unite and a rallying point to expand its base and increase its influence.
“It’s not that they care about the victims.”
UK volatility is on the rise
A survey earlier this week for The Times by polling firm YouGov showed Reform UK leading popular support at 27 per cent, up three percentage points on the week, and leading Labor and the Conservatives, who were tied at 18 per cent.
Farage’s “two-tier” comments in the House of Commons may have been a reference to the Police Anti-Racism Commitment. It was introduced by the UK government in 2022 as part of a wider program aimed at tackling what a public inquiry 26 years ago called “institutional racism” in Britain’s police force.
The killing of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the mishandling of the investigation led to widespread reforms aimed at addressing police racism.
The policy’s stated goal is to produce “equality of police outcomes for people of different races,” thereby forcing police to tailor their actions to individuals and communities “according to their specific needs, circumstances and experiences, with discretion.”
Exactly what the policy means in practice, however, has been hotly debated after the Nowak case.
Prominent human rights lawyer Matthew Ryder, who represented the Lawrence family, told BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday that Farage’s suggestion that the police amount to a “two-tier system” was completely untrue.
“It says, ‘Don’t be so impulsive that you take a normal approach to every situation you encounter,'” Ryder said.
“Understand that there are nuances, there may be cultural differences, there may be backgrounds, in order to treat people in the same way, sometimes you have to consider their different situations.”
A fatal attack
According to British prosecutors, Nowak, who was unarmed, was returning to his university accommodation at around 11:00 on December 3 last year, and luckily he ran into Digwa.
According to the sentencing statement, Digwa was carrying a large Sikh machete in his sheath. Although most Sikhs wear a kirpan, the Digwa was part of the Sikh order and usually carried a second knife.
The judge noted that there was an argument, maybe after Nowak started to shoot the big knife that Digwa was carrying, which caused Digwa to pick up Nowak’s phone.
That led to a struggle where Digwa stabbed Nowak several times, killing him in the chest.
When police arrived, Digwa and his brother, who was at the scene at the time, told police that Nowak had attacked him and called him “Paki,” which the judge concluded were among the “vicious lies” Digwa told police.
They handcuffed the dying teenager for about a minute, as he repeatedly told them he had been stabbed and couldn’t breathe, before finally realizing their mistake and administering CPR.
But by then, it was too late and Novak bled to death.
The doctor who examined Nowak’s body said that the boy would not have survived his injuries, no matter how quickly he was treated at the scene.
However, after Digwa’s sentencing on Monday, Nowak’s father said that this treatment by the police violated his son’s dignity when he died.
Trying to beg calmly
All day Tuesday, seBritain’s junior politicians – from the Labor government and the opposition – tried to plead for calm and time for the police inquiry to do its job.
“Exploiting this crisis to create grievances and divisions will be wrong in any circumstances,” said Prime Minister Keir Starmer in response to Farage’s allegations of a divided police force.
“But to do it when the family clearly says, ‘Please don’t,’ is inexcusable. It shows who you are [Farage] that’s right.”
Likewise, the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said that Farage and his political allies should not be allowed to open a case about racism, when a young person has died and his family will suffer for life.
“This is not a case about racism. This is a case of murder,” he said.
“We will not allow these killings to kill each other’s communities. We must criticize those who want to benefit themselves through politics.”
Despite appeals for unity, mainstream party leaders have so far been unable to successfully counter the far right’s narrative of race and ethnicity, said Winter, the Canadian sociologist, leaving no question as to who is setting the debate in modern Britain.
“Our plan is currently set where the agenda is set with the right terms and conditions.”
