Labour peer accuses JD Vance of 'insulting' Britain by making 'extremist statements' about the murder of Henry Nowak
A Labour Peer has accused US Vice President JD Vance of making 'extremist statements without evidence' over the murder of Southampton student Henry Nowak.Baroness Thangam Debbonaire, a former member of Sir Keir Starmer's shadow cabinet, said today that Mr Vance was 'wrong' to get involved in UK politics and it was 'insulting for an ally to use the language he had used'.Accusing him of using Mr Nowak's murder 'to stoke up tension and division' which is 'exactly what Mr Nowak's family did not want to happen', she said his intervention risked compromising the investigation of the Independent Office for Police Conduct into the police response.'Speech like this has consequences,' she said. 'When a government level spokesman of a democratically elected ally makes these comments, it is unhelpful.'He is making statements that are not supported and for which there are consequences and these are difficult times and lots of people are struggling but, when you do things like this and make extremist statements without supporting them with evidence, you are stoking up the division which Henry Nowak's family said they explicitly did not want to happen.'Earlier Mr Vance drew a stern rebuke from Downing Street after he called for 'righteous anger' over Mr Nowak's killing and blamed his murder on migration.He claimed that Mr Nowak, who was stabbed to death by Sikh Vickrum Digwa in Southampton last year, would 'still be alive today... 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 so needlessly lose his life, and I fear he won't be the last,' he added. 'Each time a life like his is lost, the proper response – the only response – is righteous anger.' Vice President JD Vance penned a scathing statement slamming 'European elites' and 'the mass invasion of migrants' for the horrific death of UK teenager Henry Nowak The 18-year-old, above, was murdered by a Sikh man who falsely claimed he had been racially abused in Southampton, UK, in December Body camera footage from the scene shows police handcuffing Nowak as he bled outThe US State Department also weighed in, calling for 'two-tiered policing' to be rejected in the West, referring to British police accepting on face value Digwa's claim that he was the victim of a racist attack even though Mr Nowak was doubled up on the ground while Digwa watched on.In scenes that have shocked the British public and sent shockwaves around the world, Mr Nowak is seen on police bodycam footage on the ground pleading for help while police stand around and fail to help him, instead handcuffing him and reading him his rights as he died.Meanwhile his murderer was accepted as the victim and not even arrested.No10 accused Mr Vance, who made his comments on social media on X, and others, of 'seeking to stir up division on our streets'.Speaking to the BBC, Baroness Debbonaire said: 'Mr Vance is wrong to base an argument on what he calls a mass invasion of migrants without any evidence of what that mass invasion means. The language of invasion is the language of conflict and war.'The former MP for Bristol West said his language had 'real world consequences for second and third generation migrants' in the UK and said it was 'not OK' for him to suggest that migrants who came to the country 'invaded it'.Jennifer Ewing from Republicans Overseas, which supports Republican Americans living in the UK, backed Mr Vance's comments.She said his comments came from a place of 'care and concern' and that 'he was holding up a mirror to the UK' and wanted 'the people of the UK to be heard by the politicians'. Vickrum Digwa, 23, was sentenced to life in prison over the killing of Nowak on Monday Baroness Thangam Debbonaire (pictured), a former member of Sir Keir Starmer's shadow cabinet, said today that Mr Vance was 'wrong' to get involved in UK politics Jennifer Ewing from Republicans Overseas (pictured), which supports Republican Americans living in the UK, backed Mr Vance's comments'The reason the Vice President is saying this is because he is seeing what happens on the streets of the UK not just in the tragic incident of Henry Nowak but also going back to Southport and other issues,' she said.Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme, she said the US had already expressed concerns about 'free speech and unfettered migration' in the UK and that US society had already decided to roll back Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) that 'had got out of control in the US'.And she warned British policing had become 'politicised' because of 'unfettered immigration' and 'DEI training'.'What happens with unfettered immigration is that you then have a policing society that becomes politicised.Read More JD Vance demands 'righteous anger' for Henry Nowak's murder and blames 'mass invasion of migrants' 'Once the policing has become politicised – and we know this because they (the police in Southampton) told us they had been through DEI training and race training – you end up with a police department that rather than focusing on equality of justice, which is a shared value of the US and UK, focuses on a situation like you had with Henry Nowak where all of a sudden someone approaches the scene and listens to "hey, this guy made racist comments" versus the guy lying on the ground who had been stabbed and was bleeding out.'That's how politics and unfettered immigration is all intertwined even though in this case he was not a migrant.''It looks like in this case the person who cried racism was treated and believed more because of their training while police are tiptoeing around these issues like we saw in Rotherham, like we saw in Southport and then you end up with an innocent young man,' she added.But referring to Stephen Lawrence's 1993 racially motivated murder, Baroness Debbonaire insisted that while she had come across 'bad DEI training', there were 'racist actions across society' and 'in the police it is still true that black and Asian young men are disproportionately arrested far more than white people'.Meanwhile, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is reported to have written to the PM to demand an independent inquiry into Mr Nowak's death and policing decisions made in the aftermath of his stabbing.A Downing Street spokesman said: 'In recent days we have seen people trying to interfere in our democracy and seeking to stir up division on our streets.'The Nowak family are grieving after Henry's horrific murder. They have said they do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension. We should be respecting their wishes.'Our politics should bring people together even in the most terrible of circumstances. That is who we are as a country.'
