US accuses UK of having 'two-tier policing' system amid unrest over student's murder

in brief

The police's handling of the murder of a white student by a Sikh man has sparked racial tension in the United Kingdom.

Keir Starmer has hit back at Elon Musk for "trying to whip up division" over the student's death.

The United States has criticised the United Kingdom's handling of the murder of a white student by a Sikh man, a high-profile case that has sparked angry protests.

The case of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, who was handcuffed by police as he lay mortally wounded after being stabbed in the port city of Southampton in December, has become highly politicised in the UK.

Attacker Vickrum Digwa lied and told police Nowak had racially abused him and that he was the victim.

Far-right activists have cited the case as an example of so-called "two-tier policing", in which officers allegedly deal with ethnic minorities more leniently.

The US state department agreed with that assessment in a statement on Friday.

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"Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline," the agency said in a post on X. "They must be rejected across the West."

It added: "The United States sends our condolences to the family of Henry Nowak and the people of the United Kingdom at this troubling time."

Digwa, 23, was jailed for at least 21 years on Monday.

Sikh leaders in the UK have called for harmony after clashes between far-right groups and police led to injuries.

Two people have been arrested, and 11 officers and a service dog have been wounded following violent protests in the Portswood area, near Digwa's home.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there was "no justification" for the violence seen in Southampton on Wednesday after far-right agitators threw bricks, flares, and chairs at police officers.

Starmer hits back at Elon Musk

Starmer accused US tech tycoon Elon Musk on Friday of "trying to whip up division" in the UK over the death of Nowak.

The Tesla CEO has posted about the incident multiple times on his X social media platform criticising the police response to the stabbing.

In one post, Musk falsely asked whether people knew that "official police policy requires them to be racist against Whites?"

Police bodycam footage of Nowak's arrest has been viewed and shared millions of times on X.

Musk has offered to fund a private prosecution against the police over its handling of the murder and insulted the Hampshire Police force involved.

"We need to also 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," Starmer told reporters.

"When we have a terrible case like Henry's case ... we react calmly, as his family have done," Starmer said, following pleas from Nowak's father that his son's murder should not be used "to create further division, hatred or tension".

Musk has long been an outspoken critic of Starmer, who previously served as a chief state prosecutor.

In a clash last year over a decades-long "grooming gangs" sexual abuse scandal, Starmer accused the world's richest man of "spreading lies and misinformation".

Right-wing politician 'unforgivable'

The prime minister said it was "unforgivable" that hard-right firebrand Nigel Farage, whose Reform UK party is leading in the polls, had called for people to respond to the murder with "pure cold rage".

Farage, who has been accused of stoking racial tensions with his remarks, claimed that a two-tier policing culture does exist in the UK, under which the rights of white people matter less than those of non-white people.

“The division will get far worse,” Farage said later.

“What you saw in Southampton last night is the beginning. If we get large numbers of young white males who think the police are prejudiced against them, goodness knows where we go. This has to end.”

Defending his comments, Farage told the UK's right-wing GB News television channel that he "condemned all violence".

"I've never, in 35 years of being in politics, advocated people going outside the law," he said.

Starmer has called the bodycam footage of Nowak's death, during which the victim can repeatedly be heard telling officers he could not breathe, "harrowing".

On Friday, he said there were "difficult questions that need to be answered about the way the police handled Henry's murder".

The UK's Independent Office for Police Conduct watchdog is investigating.

An inquest into whether police contributed to Nowak's death will open in front of a jury in September 2027, officials announced Thursday.

Black people in England and Wales are more than twice as likely to be arrested as white people, according to government statistics.

And an independent report last year found Britain's largest police force, London's Metropolitan Police, was "institutionally racist".

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