Henry Nowak riots the beginning of wider UK unrest, warns Farage

Britain’s Reform Party leader Nigel Farage has warned that rioting after the murder of Henry Nowak risks being “the beginning” of wider unrest.

Farage said the “division will get worse” if young white men felt police were prejudiced against them, adding: “This has to end.”

He made the remarks after using his question at Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions to claim that British people were “living under two-tier policing”.

The murder of 18-year-old Nowak has provoked a national outcry after he was arrested and handcuffed over unfounded allegations of racial abuse as he lay dying.

Nowak’s Sikh killer, Vickrum Digwa, who had stabbed him five times, was treated as a victim by police officers.

Farage has described the killing as a watershed moment and has demanded “pure cold rage” from the public.

Asked about accusations that his language risked inflaming divisions, Farage told Times Radio: “The division will get far worse.

“What you saw in Southampton last night is the beginning. If we get large numbers of young white males who think the police are prejudiced against them, goodness knows where we go. This has to end.”

Rioters in Southampton, where the murder took place, attacked police with bottles, bricks and wheelie bins after a protest on Tuesday night.

Demonstrators chanted “Henry, Henry” and pelted officers with projectiles outside Southampton Central police station.

In footage posted on social media, one protester is heard asking a police officer: “What are you gonna do? Put me in cuffs and kill me?”

The protests, led by Tommy Robinson and other hard-right figures, broke out amid an outcry about the police’s handling of the murder.

Farage’s comments about “pure cold rage” were referred to in parliament on Wednesday by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who accused him of “exploiting this tragedy to create grievance and division”.

“A grieving family have asked us not to respond in the way that the leader of Reform has responded,” Starmer told MPs.

“My response – and the response of others, to be fair – has focused on the lessons to be learned, so we can deliver justice.

“His response has been to appeal for rage. Rage. That’s his response to a father who’s lost his son and asked for that not to happen.”

Farage insisted that he had used the term cold rage “very, very deliberately”.

He said: “Was I angry watching what had happened? Yeah, I bet you were too. Millions of us were.

“In fact, it’s hard to be a human being and not be angry watching it. But I suggested that rage was put in a cold way, not a hot way.”

Earlier he had used an appearance at PMQs to warn that Nowak’s case showed there was “two-tier policing” in Britain.

The Reform leader was heckled by some MPs as he brought up police guidance, which he said tells officers to treat different ethnic groups in different ways.

“Following the horrendous circumstances of Henry Nowak’s death … it is now clear to growing millions in this country that we are living under two-tier policing,” he said.

“The anger that was seen spilling out in Southampton last night is in danger of getting considerably worse if the public lose trust that they will be treated fairly by the police.

“Will the prime minister take some action, end this divisive practice of two-tier policing, and make sure that all British citizens are treated the same?”

MPs have blamed guidance, published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) in 2025, for the actions of officers who arrested Nowak.

The guidance advises that a commitment to “racial equity” does not mean “treating everyone the same or being colourblind”.

Sarah Jones, the policing minister, admitted on Wednesday that the guidance was wrong and sources close to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood described the wording as “clumsy”.

The NPCC has said it will review the guidance.

The Telegraph, London

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