As Henry Nowak lay dying, his murderer and relatives concocted a deceit. They hid the murder weapon and they phoned the police claiming that Vikrum Nigwa was the victim of racially aggravated assault and battery. The lies compounded this heinous crime. One thing we owe to the memory of Henry Nowak is a commitment to truth and accuracy.
That’s one reason why I’ve been deeply disappointed by the inaccuracies told by some politicians including Nigel Farage. One particularly egregious example is this comment:
“Kemi Badenoch was happy to say “black lives do matter” after George Floyd died. But when Henry Nowak was murdered after a race-hate hoax, she said “I don’t want to hear white lives matter”. If the Conservative Party can’t accept that I spoke the truth of our two tier society, they must explain why Henry Nowak’s murder is being treated differently.”
The quote gives the impression that Kemi Badenoch, herself a black woman and an immigrant had supported the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020-21 and that now she was being dismissive towards white lives. This is to strip her words of meaning and risks inflaming tensions against Kemi Badenoch. It is at best deeply irresponsible.
Kemi Badenoch has been a consistent critic of Critical Race theory. She commissioned a report and argued on the basis of it that Britain is not a racist society. She pushes back against the ideas of systemic and structural racism, By the way, for the record, I disagreed with her at the time. Her point was more along the lines of “of course black lives matter, they have value, However, such a statement risks becoming a platitude.” Nigel Farage should know this as should some of his key party members who have served in cabinet as former Conservatives alongside Kemi Badenoch and then under her leadership as shadow cabinet members.
In her most recent comment, the fuller quote is
“I don’t want to hear about Black Lives Matter. I don’t want to hear about White Lives Matter. Everyone matters. Henry Nowak matters.”
It is obvious that she is not claiming that white lives are of no interest or value to her. She is being consistent with her long term position. She is arguing that it is unhelpful to create competition around victimhood, that there should not be a rivalry between black lives and white lives. The wider context of her remarks in an interview was that she was insisting that we don’t lose Henry Nowak in the identity politics.
I hope that Reform UK will be quick to correct the record on this. I
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