Wrong to blame immigration for teen’s murder: UK deputy PM

Britain’s deputy prime minister said on Sunday that he told US vice president JD Vance he was wrong to blame immigration for the death of a university student who was handcuffed as he lay dying from a stab wound.

David Lammy, who is also the justice minister, said he challenged Vance in what he described as a “robust” phone call on Saturday. “We had an agreeable conversation because we have got a relationship, but I wanted to make him clear that I disagree with some of the facts that he was asserting and to present the facts to him,” Lammy told Sky News.

The call came a day after Vance said in a post on social platform X that there should be “righteous anger” in response to the murder of Henry Nowak, 18, who died in Dec after being stabbed by Vickrum Digwa in the English city of Southampton. Digwa, who is Sikh, falsely claimed to police he was the victim of a racist assault by Nowak, who was white. When police officers arrived, they initially treated the wounded man as a suspect before noticing his injury and trying to resuscitate him. Vance appeared to blame the murder in part on “the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.”

Lammy said he wanted to “emphasize a number of things” to Vance, including that the killer was British and is now behind bars. “This has got nothing to do with mass migration,” Lammy said. Digwa, 23, was convicted of murder for stabbing Nowak and sentenced this week to life in prison with a minimum 21-year term. The case has been seized on by anti-immigration activists and politicians in the UK. On Tuesday, police in Southampton were pelted with chairs, cans, rocks and flares after a demonstration over Nowak’s death attended by far-right figures and others.
Catch all LIVE updates on the US-Iran conflict here.