US President Vance on Friday blamed Britain’s handling of a Sikh man’s murder of a white student on a decline in civilization caused by what he called an “invasion” of immigrants.
Vance’s comments on the case of 18-year-old Henry Novak prompted swift condemnation from Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office, which rejected attempts to “interfere with our democracy.”
“Henry Novak died like a civilized death: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared about him, and accused of a hate crime he did not commit,” Vance said on the
“His murder is tragic and infuriating.”
Vance, a long-time critic of Europe’s immigration policies, called for “righteous outrage” over the case.
Novak’s case has become a lightning rod for right-wing anger around the world and sparked riots in Britain as he lay dying in handcuffs by police after being stabbed by Vikrum Digwa in the southern city of Southampton in December.
Digwa, 23, lied and told police he was the victim and Novak hurled racial slurs at him.
US tech tycoon Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X and a friend of Vance, has repeatedly posted on the platform about the police response to the stabbing.
The U.S. State Department issued a comment Thursday condemning the “ideological constraints and two-level policing” that led to the case.
Vance is now the most senior official to comment on President Donald Trump.
Vance added: “He should be alive today, and he would be alive if the last generations of European elites, many of whom despise the West and those who love it, had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the massive invasion of immigrants.”
“Henry was not the first person to lose his life so needlessly and I fear he will not be the last.”
Vance is one of the Trump administration’s most outspoken supporters of the theory that Western civilization declined due to mass immigration.
The British government refused to allow the United States to intervene in the case.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Starmer said in a statement: “We are seeing attempts to interfere with our democracy and seek to sow division in our streets.”
The spokesperson added that student Henry Novak’s family said they did not want his killing “to be used to create further division, hatred or tension”.
Starmer himself accused billionaire Musk on Thursday of “trying to foment division in the UK”.
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This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.
