Lammy called Vance to tell him ‘you’re wrong’ after he blamed Henry Nowak murder on migration
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said he called JD Vance and told him he was wrong to blame the “immigrant invasion” in Europe for the murder of Henry Nowak.
The US vice president on Friday said the 18-year-old boy who was fatally stabbed by Vickrum Digwa would still be alive if Europeans “stood their ground” against the “politics of self-hatred”.
Mr. Lammy recalled telling Mr. Vance that the tragedy “had nothing to do with mass immigration” and that Mr. Nowak’s family had said they did 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 also criticized Mr Vance, accusing him of “trying to interfere with our democracy” as he urged people to “respect the wishes” of the Nowak family.
Body camera footage from the night Nowak was killed by Digwa shows police handcuffing her as she lay on the ground, despite her killer repeatedly insisting he couldn’t breathe after he falsely claimed he was the victim of a racist attack. He died shortly after.
Mr Lammy told Sky News: “This has nothing to do with mass immigration. This young man who killed Henry Nowak was an Englishman. Let’s be clear about that. And I said: ‘Look, Mr Deputy Speaker, you’re wrong about that.’
He said he spoke to the vice president on Saturday to “highlight some things.”
They included that “our democratic process is working well”, he said, adding that the murderer had been convicted, there were ongoing investigations into the police and the attorney general was “looking at the sentencing in relation to this”.
He also said he told Mr Vance: “Homicide is actually on the rise in the UK too.
“So we had a nice conversation, but we disagree.”
Mr. Lammy said Mr. Vance “has long been concerned about what he calls Western values, when in fact he has difficulty saying so both in the United States and in Europe, where he believes they are under attack.”
He said they “disagreed on this issue” and ended the conversation “very amicably (and) talking about when we would see each other next.”
But Mr Lammy added: “I also said that it would not be helpful to tweet in this way, partly because of the demands of the Nowak family, and I reminded him that they wanted to make it a matter of common sense rather than making it an issue of division and hatred.”
On Friday, Mr. Vance tweeted about the Trump administration’s latest involvement in the killing: “Henry Nowak died the way a civilization died: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared about 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 alive if the last few generations of European elites had stood up to the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of immigrants, many of whom despised the West and the people who loved it.
Asked whether it was time to review the carrying of knives for religious reasons, Mr Lammy said there were exemptions for Sikhs but that these were a “privilege” that could be taken away if they “did not enjoy the full confidence of the public”.
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