The British government is coming under growing pressure to end longstanding “positive discrimination” policies which sanction the police treating people from various races differently, while cracks appear in the official position that two-tier policing doesn’t exist.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told Parliament on Wednesday that two-tier policing doesn’t exist, a dogged cleaving to the official position even as his own ministers shift beneath him, tacitly accepting that things have to change. The Prime Minister’s insistence on the point in Parliament was followed by an angry haranguing of Brexit pioneer Nigel Farage, whom he accused of “exploiting” the death of Henry Nowak, who died after being handcuffed and dismissively told by a police officer that he was lying about having been stabbed.
Mr Farage had spoken up in the Commons during the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session after a night of protests turning to riots in the city of Southampton, where the teenage Nowak was stabbed to death after a chance encounter with a knife-wielding Sikh on a city street while walking home alone. Addressing Starmer, Farage said of public sentiment after chilling police body-worn camera footage showed the jaded attitude of responding officers ignoring Nowak’s report of having been stabbed while giving full attention to his murderer’s false allegation of being the victim of racist remarks that:
…it is now clear to growing millions in this country that we are living under two-tier policing. The instructions that are given, to police officers from police bosses are clear and written down in ink. It says ‘you must treat different ethnic groups in different ways’… the anger that you saw spilling out in Southampton last night and which is in danger of getting considerably worse if the public lose trust in being treated fairly by the police. Can he take some action, end this divisive practice of two-tier policing and make sure that all British citizens are treated the same?
Farage could hardly be heard at times as other Members of Parliament attempted to shout him down, uncontrolled by the Speaker of the House.
Farage’s interjection comes amid a growing series of calls from political figures for police reform in the wake of the Nowak murder, where it is stated that police standards, policy, and training specifically coach officers to treat fighting racism as a priority so great that it apparently has the capacity to cloud judgment even in a murder case. Indeed, Mr Farage wrote in an op-ed on Wednesday morning to warn that mass migration, coupled with failed multiculturalism, has led to “two-tier culture”, a failure of integration, and ethnic and religious culture leading to “parallel lives”.
Critics of these negative developments are “met with smears” to prevent problems being discussed openly, Farage said, noting: “Make no mistake, this is not a perception that emerged overnight. It is the product of decades of political choices.”
Mr Farage said:
Britain needs to undergo a broader cultural change. We must end the anti-white prejudice that has been allowed to fester. We must assert, without apology, that White lives matter too. DEI initiatives and positive discrimination must be scrapped. No ifs, no buts. If we fail to address these concerns, mistrust will deepen. Communities will grow further apart. Confidence in public institutions will continue to decline.
… something has gone deeply wrong with our national culture. We need root and branch cultural change that reestablishes a simple principle: every citizen, regardless of race, religion or background must be treated equally before the law.”
While it is impossible for politicians from other British political parties to admit agreeing with Mr Farage on anything, given his status as a persona non grata in official circles, it is nevertheless the case that even in spite of the Prime Minister’s angry denouncement of the claims and diagnosis of two-tier Britain, other politicians are tacitly admitting the case. The Daily Telegraph notes that police are now under pressure to scrap “positive discrimination policies”, including from the Conservatives, who officially reject Farage’s position but have said today that there should be a return to equality under the law.
18-year-old Nowak died while handcuffed by an officer of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, and the report states that the force gives “mandatory DEI training to all officers” and has a Race Action Plan. This was said to have been created in the wake of the death of George Floyd in 2020, and the report says it led to officers being “trained” to report incidents differently depending on the races of the people involved.
Even as the government — led by Starmer — insists two-tier policing does not exist, cracks are already beginning to appear in that story. The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC), which shapes policing policy nationwide, has already said it will be reviewing its own “anti-racism guidelines” after the death of Nowak in police custody.
As things stand, the NPCC’s guidance says it is committed to “racial equity”, which it says should be achieved by “responding to individuals and communities according to their specific needs, circumstances and experiences.” It states racial equity “does not mean treating everyone ‘the same’ or being ‘colour blind’ (racial equality).”
Even the closest allies to the Prime Minister admit this is wrong. The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said on Wednesday that this wording is “clumsy” and has to change, stating “everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law”, an implicit admission that is an ambition rather than a statement of absolute fact, as Starmer has claimed it to be.
Going into more detail was Starmer’s policing minister, Sarah Jones, who also spoke out on Wednesday to say the national policing guidance that suspects from different races should be treated differently gives a “wrong impression”. She told BBC radio: “Everyone must be equal under the law and we must ensure that is the case”.