By Niall Dooris
The tragic killing of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak has sparked outrage in Southampton and in society generally. He was stabbed by Vickrum Digwa, a young Sikh man, while returning from a night out. The police arrived on the scene and ignored his pleas for help, instead handcuffing him while he bled to death from his wounds. The video released shows him saying “I can’t breathe”, a familiar scene the world over of police dehumanisation and brutality. There must be an independent and transparent inquiry into the circumstances that resulted in Henry’s death, which should include members of his family, to fully expose the role of the police in his death.
Lies of the far-right
While racialised communities are disproportionately the victims of police violence, in this case, the victim was white. Hateful figures on the right were quick to cynically jump on this as an example of “two-tier policing” and “anti-white racism” that is caused by too much anti-racist training and DEI (Discrimination, Equity and Inclusion). The cynical weaponising of this tragic killing has been done against the explicit wishes of Henry’s family. In a statement following Digwa’s trial, his father firmly stated: “We do not want Henry’s murder to be used to create further hatred, division or tension.” This powerful plea of a grieving family has been ignored.
Nigel Farage encouraged people to “respond with pure, cold rage”. Far-right fascist grifter Tommy Robinson went as far as telling people to force Digwa’s family out of their home in the area. Further fuel was added to the fire by influential right-wing figures in the US making similar claims to Farage, such as Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk, the owner of X, where a lot of this misinformation has spread. It was no surprise that there was then rioting in the area and clashes with the police. There was a significant element of far-right agitators from outside Southampton involved in this, including Robinson, as well as openly Neo-Nazi groups.
Institutional racism
The idea that police are engaging in “two-tier policing” that negatively impacts white people, as Farage and his ilk are claiming, is total nonsense. In fact, the opposite is true. It is an undeniable fact that people of colour are disproportionately the victims of police brutality. For example, in the UK, black and brown people are 3.8 times more likely to have force used against them and seven times more likely to be killed after being restrained. The UK’s largest Police force, the London Metropolitan Police, has been found to be institutionally racist by multiple independent reviews.
The horrific death of Henry Nowak is just another example of the dehumanisation of people by police. The calls for better training and hiring practices should be welcomed if they can in any way lessen the chances of people dying at the hands of the police. However, this needs to go significantly further; what is needed is a police force that is democratically accountable and controlled by elected committees that reflect the working class and the oppressed in all their diversity.
In a capitalist society, the main purpose of the police is to protect the property and interests of the wealthy, not to protect people – indeed to suppress them when they become troublesome. The police force is designed to be a violent and callous institution. Those who join the police generally reflect this outlook and are often racist, misogynistic and queerphobic themselves. For example, of the small number of Black British police officers, over half report being racially abused by their own colleagues.
Starmer – a discredited figure
The response from the Labour Government and Keir Starmer has not fully leaned into this narrative of “two-tier” policing, but it has been characteristically weak. Starmer called for “lessons to be learned” while calling out Farage’s divisive moves, although it all means little coming from a person who means nothing he says. He has no anti-racist credentials after leaning into the anti-migrant hysteria and pressure from Reform UK. In the coming days or weeks, Starmer may do the same on this issue. His deep unpopularity means his calls for calm will likely fall on deaf ears.
Another important factor in this being weaponised by the far right is that the perpetrator of the killing was Sikh. Digwa, Nowak’s killer, was a weapons fanatic who had been banned from the local Gurdwara (Sikh temple) for his behaviour. Reform and Restore have already called for the banning of the Kirpa, the ceremonial dagger that Sikh men wear. This must be opposed and not allowed to create the pretext for a crackdown on any religious rights, particularly when it is targeting the rights of an oppressed minority.
Need for an anti-racist movement
There is a real danger that this incident, or something similar, could lead to another summer of far-right violence in the UK, similar to the Southport stabbings in 2024 or Ballymena in 2025. The organised far right have been steadily building their strength alongside growing anti-migrant racism. This is reflected in the “Unite the Kingdom” rallies organised by Tommy Robinson and in Reform’s success in the recent local elections. There has to be an anti-racist response to this, ready to knock back the far-right when it rears its head through counter-protests, but also, more importantly, going on the offensive rather than limiting itself to reactive actions.
There is real potential for such a movement. Over 500,000 marched against the far right in London at the end of March, and Robinson’s more recent protest, the “Unite the Kingdom” rally, was dwarfed by a mass Palestine Solidarity protest that took place on the same day. There is now an urgent need for left and socialist figures such as Zac Polanski, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, trade unions and progressive movements to come together and mobilise to counter the far right in all its guises. London’s Trans Pride march, which attracted 100,000 last year, should be an important rallying point similar to the recent Nakba Day protest. Their scapegoating, lies and weaponising of issues such as gender-based violence must be exposed for the grotesque hypocrisy that it is.
