David Lammy has defended Labour’s “righteous anger” over George Floyd’s death in 2020 while questioning Nigel Farage’s call for “pure cold rage” following the murder of Henry Nowak — drawing a distinction that critics have immediately seized upon as evidence of exactly the double standard he was attempting to refute.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary appeared on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, where he was pressed directly on the apparent contradiction between Labour’s vocal response to Floyd’s killing at the hands of American police and the party’s calls for restraint in the wake of Nowak’s murder and the subsequent controversy over Hampshire Police’s conduct.
Lammy’s defence rested on the difference between opposition and government. When Floyd died in May 2020, Labour was out of power, and he argued that politicians in opposition are “free to reflect anything.” He cited Sir Keir Starmer’s public statements at the time calling for the UK to express “abhorrence” at events in the United States, and referenced his own past comments about channelling “righteous anger into meaningful reform.” A government in power, he argued, carries a fundamentally different responsibility — one that requires restraint to avoid inflaming tensions rather than amplifying them.
He applied that logic directly to Farage’s conduct. The Reform UK leader had described the bodycam footage showing officers handcuffing the dying Nowak as evidence of a “two-tier culture” and called on the public to respond with “pure cold rage” — language Lammy said amounted to “peddling division.” He noted that the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Greens, SNP and Labour were all “broadly in the same place” on the case, positioning Farage as the outlier deliberately exploiting a family’s grief. He repeatedly stressed that Henry Nowak’s family had called for calm, unity and meaningful action on knife crime — not the inflaming of tensions.
Lammy also revealed he had spoken directly to US Vice-President JD Vance, confirming he told him bluntly: “Mr Vice-President, you’re wrong about this.” The US State Department had posted on X linking the case to “two-tiered policing” and “civilisational decline” — remarks Lammy dismissed as a “caricature.” He stressed that Vickrum Digwa, who was sentenced to life with a minimum of 21 years for Nowak’s murder on 1 June, was British-born, making any attempt to connect the case to mass migration “simply wrong.” He described the phone call as “robust” but ultimately “agreeable.”
The interview has generated significant reaction online, with critics on X accusing Lammy of applying different standards to different victims depending on their identity. His position — that the key variable is not who was killed but whether the politician commenting is in government or opposition — has satisfied some and enraged others. The clip of the exchange has been widely shared, with many viewers arguing that the distinction he draws is precisely the kind of selective framing that has fuelled accusations of two-tier responses to racially charged incidents in British public life.
Henry Nowak, 18, was stabbed to death in Southampton on 3 December 2025. Digwa falsely told responding officers that Nowak had racially abused him, resulting in the dying teenager being handcuffed as he pleaded that he had been stabbed. Hampshire Police subsequently issued a public apology, and the Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating the officers’ conduct.
