UK leader Keir Starmer has accused US tech tycoon Elon Musk of “trying to whip up division” in Britain following anger over the police handling of the murder of a white student by a Sikh man.
The case of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, who was put in handcuffs by police as he lay mortally wounded after being stabbed by Vickrum Digwa in the southern city of Southampton in December, has become highly politicised in the UK.
Digwa, 23, lied and told police he was the victim as Nowak had racially insulted him.
The prime minister met Nowak’s mother, father and stepmother at Downing Street on Thursday evening.
Afterwards, Starmer said the country must “choose unity and progress over division and hatred”, calling this “the only way to honour Henry’s memory”.
Far-right figures have claimed the murder is evidence that police forces in Britain treat white people and ethnic minorities differently – an allegation Starmer’s Labour government and police chiefs vehemently deny.
Musk, the billionaire owner of X, has posted numerous times on the platform about the police response to the stabbing.
In one, he asked whether people knew that “official police policy requires them to be racist against Whites?”
‘Institutionally racist’
Black people in England and Wales are more than twice as likely to be arrested as white people, according to government statistics.
An independent report last year found Britain’s largest police force, London’s Metropolitan Police, was “institutionally racist”.
Musk has offered to fund a private prosecution against the police over its handling of the murder and insulted the Hampshire Police force involved.
“We need to also assert who we are as a country, because Musk, again, has been interfering in our politics in the last few days, trying to whip up division. That is not who we are in Britain,” Starmer told reporters.
“In Britain, we are reasonable, tolerant people,” he added.
