Farage exploiting Nowak’s murder against wishes of his family, says Starmer – UK politics live

Nigel Farage , the Reform UK leader, also asked about the Nowak murder. He said: double quotation mark Following the horrendous circumstances of Henry Nowak’s death, can I urge the prime minister to consider this? 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. Farage suggested that was behind “the upset and the anger at the circumstances of his death, the anger that you saw spilling out in Southampton last night”. Some MPs jeered at Farage, saying he should condemn the violence. Farage went on: double quotation mark If the public lose trust in being treated fairly by the police, can he take some action to end this divisive practice of two-tier policing and make sure that all British citizens are treated the same? Starmer said: “I don’t believe there’s two-tier policing in this country.” And he said that he was “really shocked” by Farage’s approach. He said Farage pretended to respect Nowak’s family. But he was acting like this. Starmer went on: double quotation mark The grieving family have asked us not to respond in the way that the leader of Reform has responded. They’ve asked us not to. They have lost their son in the most appalling circumstance. They make a simple plea of us as human beings to please not exploit that. That is their plea to us. We all need to reflect on those words of Henry’s father. My response – and the response of others, to be fair – has [been focused] on the lessons to be learned so we can deliver justice. His response has been to appeal for rage. That’s his response to a father who’s lost his son and asked for that not to happen. Exploiting this tragedy to create grievance and division would be wrong in any circumstances, but to do it when the family are expressly saying please don’t is unforgivable. It shows who he is.