Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has said he phoned US Vice-President JD Vance to tell him he was wrong to link the murder of British student Henry Nowak to migration.
Vance had posted on X that Nowak, 18, died amid what he described as the decline of Western civilisation and blamed recent generations of European elites for failing to resist a ‘mass invasion of migrants’. He added that the proper reaction was ‘righteous anger’.
Lammy told the BBC he rang Vance on Saturday to challenge that framing, saying the killing ‘has got nothing to do with mass migration’. He described the call to the Sunday programme as an agreeable but robust conversation and said he made clear he disagreed with Vance’s characterisation of Western civilisation.
Lammy also said he reminded Vance that Nowak’s family had asked for calm in the aftermath of the killing. The pair, he added, remain colleagues and friends despite holding strongly differing views.
Henry Nowak was stabbed to death in Southampton in December last year. The court heard Vickrum Digwa falsely told officers he had been the victim of a racist attack and acted in self-defence. Bodycam footage shown during proceedings captured officers handcuffing Nowak as he lay dying.
Digwa, who was born in the UK, was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. He told police he had carried the blade for religious reasons connected to his Sikh faith, a claim rejected at trial.
The case sparked heated debate about policing and knife crime in the UK and led to violent protests in Southampton. The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating Hampshire Police’s handling of the incident, and the force chief has apologised for handcuffing and arresting Nowak.
A National Police Chiefs Council document setting out anti-racism commitments has also come under scrutiny since the case. The NPCC paper says racial equality does not mean treating everyone the same or being ‘colour blind’. The NPCC said it will review the language used in the document.
Reform UK home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf said the NPCC guidance was linked to what happened to Nowak and accused the police of institutional racism, while insisting his party would continue to press for political change. Party leader Nigel Farage faced criticism after urging the public to respond with ‘pure, cold rage’, comments Yusuf said his party had avoided in deference to the Nowak family’s wishes.
Lammy acknowledged inequalities in the criminal justice system, pointing to the disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities on arrest, prosecution and in prisons. At the same time he said the overt period of institutional racism in policing had, in his view, largely passed and that his personal experience of policing did not match that historical picture.
The relationship between Lammy and Vance dates back to when Lammy was an opposition MP and Vance had just been elected to the US Senate. Last summer Vance and his family stayed with Lammy at Chevening during a visit to the UK. Lammy also noted that wider US-UK ties have been strained recently, particularly over disagreements about military action in the Gulf.
