The real reason Farage has seized on the murder of Henry Nowak

TThe family of murdered teenager Henry Nowak may have called for their son’s tragic and horrific murder not to be used to fuel further division and hatred, but it was clear from Nigel Farage’s intervention that it was ignored.

The UK Reform leader who stood up in the House of Commons during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) and railed against what he claimed was a “two-tier justice system” may have had the UK in mind when he complained that anti-racism measures were responsible for the appalling treatment of the 18-year-old who handcuffed him on his deathbed.

However, it was not Southampton, where the protest outside the police station on Tuesday night turned violent, resulting in missiles thrown at the police, injuring 11 police officers and a police dog, but Makerfield, in the north-west of England, where arguably the most important by-elections of the last 50 years took place.

The Wigan constituency is 96.7 per cent white working class. He voted heavily for Leave in the Brexit referendum a decade ago and has become a classic of the overlooked, left-behind places who voted angrily to take the country out of the EU.

Unlike Gorton and Denton, where the Greens recently won another by-election, Makerfield has a small Asian population, making up just 1.2 per cent of the constituency.

A large number of Reformation activists working on the streets in Makerfield took up the Henry Nowak case, and even now they are actively raising the issue with people they meet on the doorstep.

That’s one of the things that has Labor MPs uneasy about Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham winning the by-election last week after he thought the race was in the bag with a seemingly unstoppable march to Downing Street to take over from Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.

Polling expert Lord Hayward said: Independent they were right to be worried: “Labour MPs are right to be nervous, this by-election will be very tight. The Nowak case will definitely have an impact.”

The whole scenario has echoes of a decade ago, when most commentators and politicians smugly declared that the Remain campaign would win the EU referendum, somehow ignoring the latent anger at home.

Mr Farage knows this latent anger better than almost anyone, and with his attitude of shrugging off the consequences, he is proving once again to be its chief manipulator. It is the most naked example of political opportunism.

He refused to condemn the violence seen at the protest in Southampton on Tuesday night, despite the protest being attended by far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

Instead, he allowed more of these protests, warning that there would be others. Mr Farage has a stance on these issues; Nor did he condemn the riots after the stabbings in Southport or the Epping violence over anger over immigration hotels.

The anger and division of populists on both the right and left are weapons that can be exploited. Tragedies are events that can be weaponized.

But in a way, he has to be the Mr. Angry of the situation to win Makerfield. Reform’s biggest threat in the by-election is the possible split of its vote with the more right-wing Restore Britain, led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe.

Mr Farage needs to raise his party’s core vote of around 25 to 30 per cent to support his candidate Robert Kenyon, who has been hit in the press for his colorful social media history that includes posts about misogyny, Covid conspiracies and transgender slurs.

Given the circumstances, Mr Farage will be pleased with the calls he received in the chamber on his question. Although the prime minister’s claim that he was “pretending” to care about the Nowak family has been debunked, he will have enjoyed Sir Keir’s apparent distaste for him.

Reform is running a highly misleading social media campaign against Tory leader Kemi Badenoch in the wake of the Nowak case, and Sir Keir publicly thanking him for his “measured approach” in the House of Commons during PMQs was another gift for Mr Farage.

The sad lesson from such incidents is that reasonable words and measured thoughts often fail to have much impact, and sometimes make matters worse when the “cold anger” that Mr Farage encouraged earlier this week is the visceral feeling felt by millions of people.