The controversy sparked in the United Kingdom by the death of Henry Nowak, 18 years old, because the Police ignored him after being stabbed five times by Vickrum Digwa, 23, who had falsely accused him of assaulting him because of his race has crossed the borders of the United Kingdom. The Government of Donald Trump has echoed the criticisms of the leader of the ultranationalist and anti-immigration Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, and has formally accused the United Kingdom of having a police system that treats citizens differently based on the color of their skin.
London has responded by rejecting those accusations, made by the State Department and Vice President JD Vance, while political tension continues, and six more people have been formally charged with participating in riots in the city of Southampton, where Nowak's death took place, details of which have only now been made public.
First, it was the State Department that issued a statement, posted on social media, stating that "the ideological conditioning" of the Police and the establishment of a "double standard" crime-fighting system are "blatant symptoms of civilizational decline" that "the West must fight against." The terminology is not accidental. The expression "double standard" was used by Farage when referring to Nowak's death. Prime Minister, the Labour leader Keir Starmer, described those words as "unforgivable." As for "civilizational decline," it is taken from the US National Security Strategy, presented last December.
But the crisis escalated a few notches with the entry of US Vice President, JD Vance, who in a tweet posted on Thursday afternoon said, "Henry Nowak died in the same way a civilization dies: abandoned and handcuffed by the same authorities who did not care for him or believe him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit."
Vance repeated another phrase from Farage: that the reaction to the death was "a just fury", seemingly justifying the riots that followed the death. And his attack on Europe placed him squarely in the populist current of the continent, beyond even Farage himself. Vance stated that Nowak "would be alive if the last generations of European elites had stood firm against self-hate policies and the mass invasion of immigrants, many of whom despise the West (...)".
The great paradox is that both Nowak and Digwa are British citizens, but of immigrant origin. Nowak's roots are Polish, while Digwa's are Indian. Therefore, it is a matter of race rather than immigration. And therein lies the crux of the matter, as in recent days, reports published by The Times have indicated that the Southampton Police felt pressured in their crime-fighting actions by courses on how to treat different communities, emphasizing different attitudes for different communities.
Thus, the British National Health Service states on its website that "equitable treatment does not necessarily mean treating everyone the same." Homes England, which provides housing for low-income individuals, repeats almost verbatim the same phrase. And the National Health Service rejects on its website that equality means "true justice often means equity (...) rather than treating everyone the same."
With these two messages, the two main candidates to succeed Donald Trump in the White House - if he leaves, something he has hinted he will not do despite the US Constitution setting the term limit - have deeply immersed themselves in the British political debate, something no European government did in cases like the murder of George Floyd by the US police six years ago.
The British government, which seeks to preserve at all costs the special military and intelligence relationship with United States, has responded to the accusations. Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister, David Lammy, has described the State Department's statement as a "caricature", while Starmer has warned Vance against "trying to sow further division."