Elon Musk, like Donald Trump, has an obsession with the United Kingdom that leads him to constantly interfere in its internal politics and promote the country’s far-right parties. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who until now had sought to avoid a direct clash with the American businessman, owner of the social network X, accused him this Thursday of “stirring division” in British territory over the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, the young man who died after being stabbed by a Sikh man in December last year.
The police officers who intervened on the fateful night of December 3, in Southampton, initially handcuffed Nowak and ignored his fatal wounds. He had received three stab wounds from 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, who lied to the officers, claiming that he had been the one who suffered racist attacks from the young man. Nowak died agonizing at the crime scene despite officers’ attempts to resuscitate him after realizing their mistake. Digwa was sentenced on Monday by a judge to a permanent reviewable prison term, after being accused of dishonoring his family, community, and religion with his lies.
“Send this video to everyone you know. It shows the cruel way Nowak was treated by the police at the time of his death, and how the police cowardly crawl before his killer,” Musk wrote on X, alongside the video of the incident recorded by police cameras, in which Nowak is repeatedly heard complaining that he cannot breathe. “The mainstream media, the same ones who wrote millions of times about George Floyd, are now deadly silent about Nowak,” Musk added.
The far-right, not only British, has exploited the resonance of that cry with Floyd’s, whose death in Minneapolis in 2020 fueled the Black Lives Matter protest movement. His cries of “I can’t breathe,” under a police officer’s knee, have echoed tragically in the case of young Nowak. He too repeated the same phrase, up to nine times, while officers handcuffed him and doubted his complaints. The perfect simile for Farage and all his followers, who have been spreading the incendiary idea for years that the British police use double standards in dealing with ethnic minorities.
In response, Starmer accused Musk of interfering in British politics and increasing the stress on the victim’s family, who had appealed for calm from everyone.
“We need to reaffirm the kind of country we are,” the Prime Minister said, “because Musk, again, has interfered in our politics in recent days, trying to stir division. That is not the UK we are. We are tolerant and reasonable people. And in cases like Henry’s [Nowak] we react calmly, as his family has done,” he added.
Against the agitation sought by politicians like Nigel Farage, who called for an expression of “pure and cold rage” hours before violent clashes erupted in Southampton between ultras and police, with 11 officers injured, the Labour and Conservative parties have united in their call for calm from the public.
The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, met with the victim’s family this Thursday, and Starmer plans to receive them at Downing Street on Friday.
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“They have asked us to work across all parties and religions to rebuild trust in the police. That trust has been broken by what happened, and I agree with them,” Badenoch wrote on X.
Today I have met Lucy, Mark and Katie, Henry Nowak’s mother, father and stepmother. Their courage is extraordinary.
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) June 4, 2026
They have endured the most appalling loss, it is a life sentence for them.
They have also faced the agonising decision to release the harrowing body-worn camera…
Nowak’s killer, a Sikh, carried a kirpan, a dagger, which must always be sheathed, that Sikhs carry with them from an early age as an initiation rite. It is a symbol of courage and justice, never an offensive weapon. They must use it to protect the weak, and it is a mandate of their religion. Sikhs have always had a reputation for being brave and daring.
Both the Criminal Justice Act of 1998 and the Offensive Weapons Act of 2019 contemplate the religious exception that allows males of this religion to carry these sheathed daggers. Badenoch, along with other voices such as that of Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, has suggested that this exception should be reviewed.
But it doesn’t matter that official statistics make it clear that minority racial groups in the UK are much more likely to suffer police abuse, or that they end up detained up to four times more often than white citizens in arrest and search processes.
Starmer’s government, under social and political opposition pressure, has ordered a review of the so-called Police Race Action Plan, a set of recommendations approved by British police authorities in 2024 (during the last Conservative government), which emerged precisely in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, and which urged officers not to treat situations that were unfairly different in the same way (colour blind).
