The Nowak murder has lit a match under British politics. This is how we got here

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. The Nowak murder has lit a match under British politics. This is how we got here6 minutes ago Share Save Add as preferred on GoogleLaura KuenssbergSunday with Laura KuenssbergBBCHenry Nowak's mum and dad were being shown round the Victorian maze that is the Houses of Parliament when they heard politicians talking about their 18-year-old son's murder. They were being taken on a tour of the labyrinthine building in between meetings with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and their appointment at Downing Street with the prime minister.

They'd climbed the steep steps to the crammed public gallery to take a peek at the Commons Chamber when, by chance, the leader of the Commons, Alan Campbell, and his opposite number, Jesse Norman, both paid tribute to their son, and the dignity of the family. In a terrible week of grief, I'm told they were touched to hear their son's death being acknowledged calmly in the country's parliament. The same would not apply to the ugly conversations of the day before.

The Details

The family were, mercifully perhaps, not present to hear the vicious argument with shouts of "condemn it", cries of "shame", and jeers and boos on Wednesday. MPs had rounded on Reform leader Nigel Farage as he repeated his claim that "growing millions" in the UK believe we live under what he has long described as "two-tier policing" – that's the suggestion that police are more lenient towards ethnic minorities than white people for fear of causing racial tensions or being accused of prejudice. And he warned that the anger seen "spilling out" in Southampton was "in danger of getting considerably worse" if the public lose trust in the police.

PA WireThe Nowak family met Kemi BadenochBut the Hampshire Conservative police commissioner, Donna Jones, who has been helping support Nowak's parents, told me: "Farage's comments on Wednesday were irresponsible and will lead to more division on Britain's streets – the Nowaks had called for calm reflection and reiterated that to me on Friday, and asked me to represent that view". Now, this weekend, to the horror of Downing Street, even the vice president of the United States has piled in. A torrid political argument is raging, one that's gone way beyond the tragedy of one family – it's a new fault line in British politics, involving the Trump administration too.

Claims of "two-tier" policing, which conveniently for the prime minister's critics, can be made into the damning rhyming jibe of "two-tier Keir", first started to circulate in mainstream politics in the summer of 2024. Although claims of a "two-tier" system had been made by the convicted far-right activist Stephen Yaxley Lennon (Tommy Robinson) many years before. ReutersBut two years ago, there were violent protests in towns and cities across England and Northern Ireland after fatal stabbings at a children's dance class in Southport on 29 July.

Unrest had been stirred by misinformation on social media that the suspect was an illegal migrant.

The story has become one of the most prominent items on the global agenda.