Deputy prime minister David Lammy has said he rang JD Vance to tell him he was wrong to blame an “invasion of migrants” in Europe for the murder of Henry Nowak.
On Friday, the US vice-president said the 18-year-old, who was fatally stabbed by Vickrum Digwa, would still be alive if Europeans had “stood their ground” against the “politics of self-hatred”.
Mr Lammy said he told Mr Vance the tragedy had “nothing to do with mass migration” and reminded him that Mr Nowak’s family have said they do not want his death to be used to create division.
He added: “I said: ‘Look, Mr Vice President, you’re wrong about this.’”
Downing Street has also hit out at Mr Vance, accusing him of “trying to interfere in our democracy”, as it urged people to “respect the wishes” of the Nowak family.
Bodycam footage from the night Nowak was killed by Digwa shows that police handcuffed him as he lay on the ground, despite his repeated pleas that he could not breathe, after his killer falsely claimed to have been the victim of a racist attack. Nowak died shortly afterwards.
His death sparked riots in Southampton on Tuesday following an anti-police protest attended by far-right figures including Tommy Robinson and Lawrence Fox. Several officers were injured and there were multiple arrests.
Mr Lammy told Sky News: “This has got nothing to do with mass migration. This young man [who killed Henry Nowak] was a Brit. Let’s be clear about that. And I said: “Look, Mr Vice President, you’re wrong about this.”
Mr Lammy said he had spoken to the vice-president on Saturday in order to “emphasise a number of things”. They included his view that “our democratic process is working well”, he said, adding that the murderer had been convicted, there were ongoing investigations into the actions of police, and the attorney general was “looking at the sentencing in relation to this”.
He said he had also informed Mr Vance that the UK’s murder rate is falling.
Mr Lammy said Mr Vance “has a longstanding concern about what he calls Western values ... both in the United States and in here in Europe, which he believes are under attack”.
He said that they “disagree on that” and that they ended the conversation “very amicably [and] talked about when we’re next going to see each other”.
However, Mr Lammy added: “I also urged him that it’s not helpful to tweet in this way, partly because of what the Nowak family have asked for, and reminded him about their desire not to make this an issue of division and hatred, but to make this an issue of common sense.”
Mr Lammy later told the BBC that he and Mr Vance “remain colleagues and friends” despite their “robust” dispute.
He added that Mr Vance had been “at pains” to emphasise that his “concerns were as much about the United States” as about the UK.
On Friday, in the latest intervention by the Trump administration over the murder, Mr Vance posted on X: “Henry Nowak died the same way a civilisation dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit. His murder is as tragic as it is enraging.
“He should still be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.”
Asked about whether it was time to review legislation relating to the carrying of blades for religious reasons, Mr Lammy said there were exemptions for Sikhs but that these were a “privilege”, and the right to carry blades could be “taken away if [the policy] doesn’t command the full confidence of the public”.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s defence secretary Pete Hegseth has come under fire for using a D-Day commemoration event to attack Nato countries and accuse them of failing to tackle illegal immigration.
Speaking in Normandy during a ceremony to mark the 82nd anniversary of the Allied landings, which saw US and Allied forces liberate Western Europe from Nazi occupation, Mr Hegseth claimed that Europe currently faces an “invasion of dangerous ideologies” arriving by sea.
Former defence secretary Ben Wallace told The Independent: “JD Vance and Hegseth would do well to not believe everything they read on X, and to read the inspiring D-Day speech by Ronald Reagan on the 40th anniversary.”
