Only a few days after Henry Nowak died after being stabbed multiple times by a (clearly mentally ill) British Sikh in the city of Southampton, a Sudanese asylum seeker attempted to decapitate a British man in the city of Belfast. Riots ensued. Let us look at each of these crimes in context. This is not a “call for calm,” this is a call for analysis.
Nowak’s killer was not an immigrant (and also had a British-born father), so immigration and asylum policy are not relevant to the Nowak case. Asylum policy is, however, relevant to the Belfast case, but regular immigration policy is not.
“Antiracist” policing practice (a.k.a. two-tier policing that treats minorities more delicately than whites) is not apparently relevant to the Belfast case, although the governmental response to said case may indeed be impacted by “antiracist” ideology (for instance, if all PR responses are about “the danger of far-right extremism” blah blah blah, if the offender isn’t deported, that kind of thing).
Macro-level context is important. The reality is that the UK public have asked multiple successive governments for more immigration regulation, and said governments (including Conservative Party ones, too) have systematically ignored the public’s desire. A common tactic to justify said snubbing was to accuse those wanting less immigration of racism. The spectre of racism accusations was a core factor in the institutional enablement and cover-up of the Pakistani Muslim Grooming Gangs which operated in several Midlands towns.
Another core factor which precipitated not just the Grooming Gangs cover-up but the continuance of less-regulated immigration was the electoral self-interest of the Labour Party, who (in many key electorates) are/were critically dependent on receiving bloc votes from the Pakistani community, and who (during the Blair years) loosened immigration regulations because of studies that showed “diverse” communities tended to vote Labour.
Both of these attacks were committed with knives, but neither are about “knife crime.” They exist at the intersection of complex debates regarding immigration & asylum policy and the partisan weaponization of it as a method of demographic gerrymandering, as well as the curtailment of civil liberties and the abrogation of equality under the law in the name of “antiracist” ideology (an ideology which explicitly stipulates that equality under the law is a white male conspiracy to subjugate ethnic minorities – see Ibram Kendi’s How To Be An Antiracist).
For everyone who wants to discuss demography (hi, HBD enthusiasts!), these cases are fundamentally different. Nowak’s killer was a British Sikh, and Sikhs are a well-integrated minority with high levels of human capital. The Belfast assailant is a Sudanese asylum seeker, and that is a starkly different cohort. Needless to say, we’ve also seen troubling behaviour from Sudanese communities in Australia (Melbourne’s machete attack problem), but that doesn’t mean every single Sudanese asylum seeker should categorically or automatically have their applications denied.
Interestingly, both the Sikhs and the Sudanese share a colonial history with some similarities. The primary colonial rulers both had to deal with were Muslims (the Mughals and the Ottomans respectively), followed by the British. None of this excuses the attackers in either case (nor would it excuse the attackers if their victims had been Muslims). Sudan today is 95% Muslim, and whilst the Sudanese civil war has disproportionately impacted non-Muslims, many Sudanese asylum seekers are members of Sudan’s majority religion. In addition, there is no evidence so far that the perpetrator of either incident was motivated by ethnoreligious bigotry or colonial resentment (although Novak’s killer manipulatively weaponized antiracist ideology in an attempt to escape accountability).
At this point, it is becoming hard to escape the conclusion that the United Kingdom is a de facto Failed State that has abolished equality under law and is continuing to implement and intensify progressive (and Progressive) authoritarian crackdowns against free speech and discussion, primarily because its citizens are starting to notice these extreme systematic issues and consequently becoming more critical of the powers that be.
JD Vance received criticism for linking the murder of Henry Nowak to unmanaged immigration. In the most technical sense, Vance was wrong. That particular case wasn’t about immigration or asylum policy (if he spoke about “woke” or “antiracist policing” or something along those lines, he’d be on solid ground). But the Belfast assailant is absolutely an asylum seeker – in the context of the Belfast case, Vance’s remarks must be taken seriously.
Another case – another knife crime that gets frequently refracted through the prism of race, religion and immigration – was the 2024 Southport Stabbings. The perpetrator in that case was a British citizen of Rwandan Tutsi ancestry (an ethnic minority group targeted for genocide). His parents were Evangelical Christians who moved to the UK (I do not know if they came through the regular immigration or through the asylum system). The perpetrator had a history of neurodevelopmental illness (autism spectrum, officially diagnosed) and was suspected to be violent, but those who were worried about the threat he may have posed remained silent due to fears of being accused of racism.
Riots in the aftermath of this crime were based on (actual) misinformation – there was an immediate presumption that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker or migrant. To be blunt, the fact that the British authorities were slow to release and broadcast the identity of the attacker only intensified such presumptions (the UK is also subject to “Coulter’s Law” – “the longer it takes the government or establishment media to release the identity of an attacker, the less likely it is that the attacker is a white male.” The UK variant of this would add “and the more likely it is that the attacker is Muslim and/or a migrant or asylum seeker”). The attacker’s Christian background would certainly serve to complicate the narratives of some on the right.
That said, the Southport incident bears the strongest resemblance to the slaying of Henry Nowak. The perpetrator was mentally ill, and government-institutionalized “antiracism” delayed the prevention of tragedy until it was too late.
I’m not going to say “don’t look back in anger” or demand that ethnic-majority Brits refuse to be angry. They have a right to be angry and frankly, they should be angry. But the real target of their anger shouldn’t be ethnic minority persons, or religious sites. The real target of their anger should be their government, and the prophets of the “antiracist” (or anticolonial/decolonial/postcolonial/any-other-flavor-of-white-guilt) ideology that their government instituted. It is this ideology, institutionalized by the state, that is at the root of all the problems. Letting in asylum seekers without proper vetting and granting them Authority to Remain (Belfast)? That’s a policy issue where responsibility lies with the British state. Antiracist policing that lets Henry Nowak die (Southampton)? That’s a policy issue where responsibility lies with the British state. Antiracist bureaucracies who won’t say “this kid is potentially dangerous” because the kid is black (Southport)? That’s a policy issue where responsibility lies with the British state. And where do the ideas undergirding these terrible policies germinate and metastasize? The universities.
I have a piece in an upcoming issue of The Spectator Australia discussing my thoughts specifically on the Nowak case. But at the moment, all I can do is hope for the best for my friends in the United Kingdom, and seethe while watching from the other side of the world.
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