“Henry Nowak died the same way a civilisation dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit,” says VC J.D. Vance on social media.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday (June 6, 2026) blamed Britain’s handling of the murder of a white student by a Sikh man on what he called civilisational decline caused by an “invasion” of migrants.
Mr. Vance’s comments on the case of 18-year-old Henry Nowak sparked a swift denunciation from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office, which rejected attempts to “interfere in our democracy.”
“Henry Nowak died the same way a civilisation dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit,” Mr. Vance said on X.
“His murder is as tragic as it is enraging.” Mr. Vance, a longtime critic of European migration policies, called for “righteous anger” in response to the case.
The case of Nowak, who was handcuffed by police as he lay dying after being stabbed by Vickrum Digwa in the southern city of Southampton in December, has become a lightning rod for right-wing anger around the world and sparked riots in Britain.
Digwa, 23, lied and told police he was the victim and that Nowak had racially insulted him. U.S. tech tycoon Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X and a friend of Mr. Vance’s, has posted numerous times on the platform about the police response to the stabbing.
The U.S. State Department then weighed in on Thursday (June 4), condemning what it said was “ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing” that had led to the case. Mr. Vance is now the highest-ranking official in U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to comment.
“He should still be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it,” Mr. Vance added.
“Henry was far from the first to lose his life so needlessly, and I fear he won’t be the last.” Mr. Vance is one of the most vocal proponents of the Trump administration’s pushing of theories of Western civilisational decline due to mass migration.
The British government rejected the U.S. intervention in the case. “We have seen people trying to interfere in our democracy and seeking to stir up division on our streets,” a spokesperson for British PM Starmer said in a statement.
The spokesperson added that the family of student Henry Nowak had said they did not want his killing “to be used to create further division, hatred or tension.” Mr. Starmer himself accused billionaire Musk on Thursday (June 4) of “trying to whip up division” in Britain.
Published – June 06, 2026 10:20 am IST
