Farage accuses police of two-tier treatment in Southampton murder case

Nigel Farage turned Henry Nowak’s death into a wider fight over policing on Wednesday, repeating his claim that Britain is being run by “two-tier policing” after footage showed officers handcuffing the 18-year-old university student as he lay dying in Southampton.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, the Reform UK leader said police had treated an allegation of a racial slur more seriously than Nowak’s pleas for help. Farage has also urged the public to respond with “pure, cold rage” and argued that trust in policing will keep eroding unless chiefs drop anti-racism guidance. In his telling, the case is evidence of anti-white prejudice.

The facts of the killing are stark. Nowak was stabbed five times in Southampton in December 2025 by Vickrum Digwa, who was convicted of murder last week and sentenced to life in prison. Body-worn footage showing Nowak being restrained while he reportedly told police he had been stabbed and could not breathe has fuelled public outrage, and protests in Southampton have already descended into clashes with police.

Keir Starmer rejected Farage’s framing and accused him of exploiting Henry Nowak’s murder for political gain. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood also dismissed the idea that police apply different standards to different communities. The Nowak family has said the contrast between the treatment of the victim and the killer was unbearable and has appealed for dignity as the case is dragged through national politics.

That argument now cuts to the question of evidence. What “two-tier policing” would mean in practice is not a feeling or a slogan, but a measurable pattern in charging decisions, arrest outcomes and enforcement across similar cases. The known record in this case is narrower: Digwa was arrested in 2023 over alleged knife theft from a Sikh temple but was never charged, and police have come under pressure to explain how his earlier history and his claim of racist abuse were handled.

Professor Jagbir Jhutti-Johal of the University of Birmingham warned that politicising the case in this way could deepen mistrust and foster division in minority communities. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, meanwhile, is also facing scrutiny over race and inclusion policies after saying in 2022 that being anti-racist, ethical and inclusive was top of its agenda. Reform has already said it wants an Equal Treatment Act to end what it calls two-tier policing for good. For now, the row has become less about one murder alone than about whether policing has become a proxy battlefield in populist politics.