Europe’s far right exploit Nowak murder with populist rhetoric on race

Polish, Spanish and French populists focus on clips of teenager’s dying moments and accuse UK of descending ‘into depths of the earth’

Polish far-right politicians have claimed that the murder of Henry Nowak symbolises “Britain’s descent into the depths of the earth” as populists from France , Spain and Japan focused on harrowing clips of his dying moments.

Despite pleas from Nowak’s family for people not to exploit the killing for political gain and to focus on cutting knife crime, their comments have focused on race and immigration.

Police footage showing Nowak’s final few minutes of life have been shared across the world. The 18-year-old was arrested and handcuffed as he lay dying from stab wounds, while his murderer, Vickrum Digwa, who had stabbed him five times, lied to police that he had been racially abused.

Marta Czech, a member of the far-right Confederation of the Polish Crown, was questioned about Nowak’s murderer at an activists’ meeting last week in Hammersmith, west London. She called for a “defence of Poles in our country and abroad”.

Nowak’s father is understood to be of Polish descent.

She said: “We don’t have politicians who will care about Polish interests, or Poles, who will represent our values abroad, people with a Polish face, with a Polish passport. We need to be ready to repress these attacks. We must unite against such attacks.”

Ewa Zajączkowska-Hernik, a Polish MEP in Viktor Orbán’s grouping, described Digwa, a British citizen, as “an Indian”. In a post on Facebook, Zajączkowska-Hernik blamed “mass immigration”, adding: “This story symbolises Britain’s descent into the depths of the earth … How brainwashed do you have to be with leftist propaganda and political correctness to react this way? And how can you even bring your country to such a state with mass immigration that undermines security?

“White lives don’t matter? Has the world reached this point, brainwashed by this suicidal, leftist ideology?”.

The far-right French politician Éric Zemmour, who organised rallies to protest against the rape and murder of a 12-year-old, Lola Daviet, in France in 2022, despite opposition from her family, said Nowak’s “immigrant perpetrator” was being protected by the “religion of anti-racism”.

He wrote on X : “This horrific murder is a metaphor for what the West is experiencing: the native is treated as a suspect, while the immigrant perpetrator is shielded by the religion of anti-racism, which paralyses government officials and police officers. This time, there will be no kneeling. Europeans, in their own homeland, are not allowed to do so.”

Santiago Abascal, the leader of the Spanish far-right party Vox, wrote that “the British people are burning with rage” over Nowak’s death.

He wrote on X: “The mainstream media, silent, as usual ... The globalist elites who have spawned this madness, also looking the other way. There are many responsible parties and accomplices in the atrocities we see daily in Europe . They should all be brought to justice, and one day they will be.”

A hard-right news aggregator in Japan called Hoshu-Sokuhou, which specialises in anti-Chinese and anti-Korean content, ran an article about the attack. It concluded: “This can be seen as a concrete example of the failure of multiculturalism and the result of the police prioritising political and racial considerations above all else, thereby losing sight of their fundamental duty to protect the lives of the public.”

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, suggested the British public react with “pure, cold rage” to the actions of police. Speaking during prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Farage repeated his claim that the incident was the result of “two-tier policing”, citing anti-racism guidance issued by senior officers.

Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, appeared to criticise Farage’s comments in the Commons, saying it was a “time for serious work, not rage” and that there was “no justification for more violence and disorder”.

A former police officer has been forced to flee to a safe space after she was falsely accused online of being involved in the Nowak murder . Christi Hill, who served as a police constable for 12 years, has criticised social media and AI platforms, including Elon Musk’s Grok, for spreading the false claim that she was one of the officers who arrested Nowak as he lay dying after being stabbed by Digwa.

Digwa, 23, was jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years on Monday for Nowak’s murder in Southampton last December. The attorney general’s office said it had received “multiple requests” to review Digwa’s sentence under the unduly lenient sentence scheme.