Henry Nowak, 18, was stabbed to death in Southampton in December last year by Vickrum Digwa, 23, who has this week been given a life sentence with a minimum of 21 years. The case has attracted significant attention over the conduct of the police at the scene, who handcuffed the dying teenager after Digwa falsely claimed he had been racially abused and acted in self-defence. Hampshire Police have apologised. Henry’s father, Mark, called for a transparent investigation – and explicitly asked that his son’s death not be used to “create further hatred, division or tension.” Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe responded by doing exactly that.
Farage recorded what he called an “emergency address to the nation” and broadcast it on X. Lowe claimed children were being “sacrificed to death in order to appease foreign cultures that have no place in our country.” The Sikh Federation, whose community has been caught in the fallout from the case, has said the blade used by Digwa was not a Kirpan – the religious blade he claimed it was – and that their community is being “demonised” for the actions of one individual.
What happened to Henry Nowak
The facts of the case are deeply serious and the family’s call for a transparent investigation of police conduct is entirely legitimate. Nowak was walking home alone from a night out when Digwa attacked him. Bodycam footage shows that when officers arrived at the scene, they handcuffed Nowak as he lay on the ground, having believed Digwa’s immediate claim that Nowak had racially abused him and that he had acted in self-defence.
The footage shows Nowak telling officers he has been stabbed and “can’t breathe” multiple times. His words appear to be dismissed before he becomes unresponsive minutes later. Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones described the incident as a “national tragedy” and the force has apologised.
Digwa’s defence that he carried the blade as a Kirpan – a ceremonial blade that is one of the Five Ks of Sikhism – has been addressed directly by the Sikh community. Dabinderjit Singh of the UK Sikh Federation told the BBC: “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.”
The Sikh Federation has stated that the blade used was not a Kirpan.
The family’s specific request
Speaking outside court following Digwa’s sentencing, Henry’s father Mark called for a transparent investigation into the “inhumane” treatment of his son by officers. His wider statement was clear: the family “do not want Henry’s murder to be used to create further hatred, division or tension.”
This is a specific and explicit request from a bereaved father about how his son’s death should be treated in public discourse.
What Farage said
Farage’s “emergency address” drew a direct comparison with the death of George Floyd in the United States in May 2020. “What does he 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.”
He then said 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.” He called for “pure, cold rage” in response and concluded: “Enough of anti-white prejudice. A promotion of the idea that white lives matter just as much as black lives. An end to DEI and positive discrimination.”
He also used the moment to push his usual lines on mass immigration, hate speech laws, and “positive discrimination.”
Rupert Lowe went further, claiming that “children have been sacrificed to death in order to appease foreign cultures that have no place in our country” and urging people to “look back in anger.”
Elon Musk shared multiple posts about the case.
The responses
Conservative former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng – also Farage’s crypto business partner – said on Good Morning Britain that Farage had “politicised” Nowak’s death. Journalist Kevin Maguire accused him of “race-baiting.”
The specific problem with Farage’s framing is not that questions about the police conduct are illegitimate. They are not. The Hampshire Police apology and the PCC’s “national tragedy” description acknowledge that something went seriously wrong at the scene. A transparent investigation, as the family has demanded, is a reasonable and proportionate response.
The problem is that Farage’s response bears no relationship to those legitimate questions. He did not call for an inquiry into police conduct. He did not call for changes to the procedures that allowed Digwa’s lie to be accepted at the scene. He called for “pure, cold rage,” promoted “white lives matter” language, and framed the death of a teenager as evidence of anti-white prejudice – rhetoric that the family specifically asked people not to produce and that the Sikh Federation says has led to their entire community being “demonised” for the actions of one individual.
As we reported in our Kenyon Southport disinformation piece, this is the same pattern that characterised Reform figures’ response to the Southport murders – using a specific tragedy involving specific individuals as a recruitment pitch and a vehicle for pre-existing political narratives, against the explicit wishes of those most affected. As we reported in our EHRC Islamophobia complaint piece, 27 MPs have written to the equality watchdog about Reform’s pattern of conduct in relation to ethnic and religious minorities. The Sikh Federation’s response to this week’s events adds a specific and documented community voice to that picture.
Dabinderjit Singh said: “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.”
Henry Nowak’s family asked for no further hatred. They asked for an investigation into how he died. Farage provided the former and ignored the latter.
