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Former health secretary Wes Streeting has said Reform UK’s response to the murder of Henry Nowak “has echoes of the 1930s”.
Speaking on Wednesday night, Streeting accused Nigel Farage’s party of “weaponising” the murder of 18-year-old Nowak to “stoke rage”.
Nowak was fatally stabbed by 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa in Southampton in December.
Digwa, who falsely claimed he had been racially abused and attacked by Nowak, was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years on Monday.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating the conduct of police officers who handcuffed Nowak after he had been stabbed and repeatedly told police he could not breathe as he lay dying.
Farage has urged the public to respond to the case with “pure, cold rage”.
Riots took place in Southampton on Tuesday night in response to the case, which Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday.
At PMQs, Farage said it was “now clear to growing millions in this country that we are living under two-tier policing”, and claimed that police guidance effectively instructed officers to “treat different ethnic groups in different ways”.
Streeting gave a speech at the LabourList parliamentary reception last night, alongside Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell, Education Secretary Bridget Philipson, and backbench Labour MP Jeevun Sandher.
“We have seen it in the last 24 hours, the way in which [Reform] have sought to weaponise an absolutely heinous crime and situation,” Streeting said.
“To weaponise it against their political opponents, and to stoke rage, and to incite rage is really dangerous, and it’s not too dramatic to say this has echoes of the 1930s.
“We have to take this seriously when you have political propaganda that weaponises the words of the Leader of the Opposition, bends and twists them out of context to suggest that a Black woman leading the Conservative Party doesn’t think that white lives matter, that is a moment for all of us, especially those who are not Conservative, to speak up and challenge and call this out.”
Reform has been heavily criticised after publishing an attack ad about Kemi Badenoch that displayed only part of a comment she made in response to Nowak’s murder.
Badenoch told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I don’t want to hear about Black Lives Matter. I don’t want to hear about White Lives Matter. Everyone matters.”
However, the Reform ad only included: “I want to hear about White Lives Matter.”
Streeting told the reception that the Labour Party had a responsibility to “follow Henry Novak’s father’s leadership” and show “what moral courage and clarity looks like”.
Streeting also said that following the local elections in England and devolved administration elections in Scotland and Wales, for the first time in history, “nationalists are in power in every corner of the United Kingdom”.
“While some of those nationalists would consider themselves progressives, I take the view that there has never been anything progressive about nationalism as separatism, where even if it’s the nationalism of the SNP and Plaid Cymru,” he said.
He added that in England, “we have something altogether more dangerous” – referring to Farage’s party.
A formal leadership challenge has not yet been launched to replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer, following a set of disastrous local and national election results for Labour in England, Scotland and Wales last month.
However, either a contest or a coronation is widely seen as likely soon, after Streeting stepped down as health secretary in May and announced his intention to stand when a contest is underway, and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham announced that he will stand in the Makerfield parliamentary by-election to re-enter Parliament.
Streeting also addressed the latest release of files containing messages between cabinet ministers and former US ambassador Peter Mandelson, saying it gave a troubling insight into decision-making in government, which excluded women.
“There were exchanges about tech policy, about trade policy, and what those conversations had in common was the total absence of any women,” he said.
“The most prominent reference to a woman was the reference to the most powerful woman in the country, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and how she would need to be managed on the issue.”
He said it exposed “unconscious bias, the everyday sexism, even among people, particularly men in politics who would consider ourselves progressives and committed to equality across the board, including gender equality”.
“That is a culture that we all of us, but particularly men in politics, have a responsibility to help change.”
