“HITLERIAN!” Henry Nowak Murder Sparks Debate On Two-Tier Policing Post Black Lives Matter

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0:33We've gotten to a point where the implication of racism is so powerful that it can cause the cops to ignore the fact that a young man is saying, hey, I can't breathe, and I was just stabbed. Why did Farage do what he did in each incident? It depends on the skin color of the victim and the skin color of the killer. Identity politics. Bring it down straight to identity politics. As usual. That's all you do. This was completely cold and calculated. It was Hitlerian. He never called for violence. He never called for people to take to the street.

1:02Piers Morgan:J.D. Vance, the vice president of the United States, who said he should be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European elites have stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants. I do think he makes a really important point about self-hatred, and I'll actually go a step further and say it's actually white guilt. The shocking murder of Henry Novak has sparked an overdue debate across Western world about two-tier policing. Many believe, as I do, that post-BLM hysteria led to a climate of reverse racism, an overcorrection in which racism was to be assumed until proven otherwise.

1:36Piers Morgan:As a sideline to the truly harrowing details of the Novak case, the UK in particular is now experiencing an outbreak of two-tier virtue signalling. Politicians here had no hesitation about taking a knee for George Floyd, for example. Many are resharing this image of the now Prime Minister Keir Starmer taking a knee while socially distanced from his then deputy. David Lammy, the UK's Deputy Prime Minister, was a big supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement. He condemned those refusing to take a knee as disrespectful. He now has a different view. Some commentators are suggesting this is a take the knee for Henry Novak moment.

2:11Would you take the knee for Mr Novak?

2:15Well, look, I think to honour what that... Was it yes or no, Mr Lammy? Would you take the knee for Henry Novak? I think no, because, look, I don't think that the family are asking for symbolism. They're asking for genuine common-sense policing, and for them, they want to see a reduction in knife crime, and, of course, they're concerned about some of the policing that they saw on this occasion. So you agree, taking the knee is mere symbolism, isn't it, really? It was a bit of a charade at times. That was a moment back then, when we were still in the pandemic. This is today.

3:19Piers Morgan:Hmm. was updated to eradicate colourblind policing and actively pursue a so-called equity of outcomes. Well, to begin with, like many people, I was in lockstep with the sentiments of BLM. But despite that, I never personally took a knee, nor did I participate in the Black Square event on social media. I don't believe in performative virtue or in corralling people into social statements by force. As I said last week, if you reject identity politics and sincerely believe in the ideal of a colourblind society, then you shouldn't now be repeating the same mistakes. The difference, though, is that so many of our politicians and separatists clearly do believe in performative virtue as long as it's their version of it.

4:00Piers Morgan:And not for the first time, they've been exposed as a bunch of raging hypocrites. Well, joining me in the studio is Leda Cunningham, Reform UK's candidate for London mayor, and political columnist Ashok Kumar, Joe Walsh, the former Republican presidential candidate and host of The Social Contract, and the political commentator Kaizen Aseidu. Well, welcome to all of you. Welcome back to you, Kaizen. I haven't seen you for a long time, so great to have you back, as well as the others. OK, let's get into this. Ashok Kumar, my problem with all this, in terms of the reaction, is precisely what Nick Ferrari exposed there with David Lammy, the UK's deputy prime minister, because he didn't have a good answer for why he wouldn't take the knee for Henry Novak.

4:44Piers Morgan:The stories are very similar, they're different, but they're very similar, actually. They're about police misconduct when somebody is dying, where if they've taken more care and consideration, then perhaps the person may have lived. The fact that Lammy couldn't answer that, to me, is just blatant hypocrisy. It's just he can't explain why something happens in America and he's falling to the knee as a symbol of his virtue, but when it happens on his doorstep in the UK, he can't do it. Can you make sense of it? Well, yeah, no, I agree with you. In large part, I think the knee taking was completely performative.

5:23It was superficial. There were genuine concerns about police misconduct. It is a fact that in this country, and you can go on the home office website just today and see that if you're a black man, you are 3.5 times more likely to be stopped and searched than someone who's white. You are twice as likely to be arrested and you're seven times as likely to be killed, restrained to death through positional association. by the police. Those are real issues. The whole performance black square and the taking the knee, that's correct. That's identity politics. We shouldn't talk... We shouldn't make this about identity politics.

5:57We should make it about police accountability. Just like the Sarah Everard case, you know, where Wayne Cousins, a police officer, who was called the rapist for years by the police force, was allowed to do... Well, did this, and then, you know, there was genuine concerns about how do we hold the police accountable? Not through identity politics, not through various different tokenistic measures, but genuine accountability. And that's what we need to do here. You need to say, how do we hold these police accountable? How do we actually have accountability boards? How do we charge police the same ways that we charge everyone else?

6:26They're not exceptional. Rather than make this a race issue, which it certainly is not.

6:30Piers Morgan:Okay. I mean, we don't actually know that. I mean, I hear what you say. We don't actually know it wasn't a race issue because we don't really know what was exchanged between the two of them leading up to what happened. We don't actually know for a fact what went down, which caused this situation to happen. So I think we shouldn't rush into saying it is, but we shouldn't also perhaps rush into saying it definitely wasn't. We don't know, right? Well, Kaisen, you want to say something? Yeah, well, what we do know is that the killer tried to invoke race as the reason that he killed the other person in self-defence.

7:06And I actually think that indicates something about the cultural psychosis that we're in. We've gotten to a point where the invocation of racism is so powerful that it can cause the cops to ignore the fact that a young man is saying, hey, I can't breathe, and I was just stabbed, and I'm bleeding out of the floor. But the cops are more focused on viewing him as the perpetrator because he was accused of racism rather than addressing the fact that he's bleeding out. So race is involved. And you know what's interesting? It's the fact that the man who killed Henry Novak knew to use race as his defense.

7:39He knew how powerful it is to say, this man attacked me for racism. So that is the racial component that we do know is... I think that's absolutely right.

7:47Piers Morgan:Yeah. Leila? I think you're right, because, you know, a stabbing victim should never lose his presumption of innocence because the offender screams racism. And what we saw after Stephen Lawrence and George Floyd was guidance to the police was changed. And initially, I think the guidance was to eradicate racist conduct, which we cannot deny did exist within our police force, we saw with Stephen Lawrence. But it's changed to equalize equality of outcomes, irrelevant of offending history, and that's where the mistake has happened. And I think public servants, and listen, I was a senior Crown prosecutor, so I know this, are so scared of getting the race issue wrong that it clouds their judgment and forces them to get operational decisions catastrophically wrong.

8:30We saw it with a young girl here who was killed by her father. Her name was Sara Sharif. And her father was a Muslim Pakistani, and he covered her hair to hide the bruises. and the two adult females in the family had not had their hair covered and social services were too scared to ask why her hair was covered and the others feared being called Islamophobic. And I'm not saying it led to her death, but as a result, questions that could have saved her life were not asked.

8:59Piers Morgan:But there is another component to this, and it involves your boss of your party, Nigel Farage, where I think there is a clear double standard in his attitude to this. because obviously he's been heavily criticised for what he said in light of what happened to Henry Novak. Let's take a look at the clip. Henry's family have responded to this in just the most extraordinarily dignified way. But I suggest the rest of us respond to this with pure, cold rage. This is wrong. Now, the problem with that rhetoric, Leila, is that I saw a senior member of the Sikh community on Sky News this morning, very eloquent, very well-informed, talking about the fact that this particular young Sikh had not used the ceremonial Kirwan to commit this murder.

9:52Piers Morgan:He'd used a large Turkish knife, which was an illegal act anyway, and is now serving over 20 years in prison for doing that, right? So this idea this was a Sikh issue... But... Well, hang on, I haven't finished yet. And my point is that what Nigel Farage did by saying what he said is he was deliberately trying to stir up the very rage we then saw down in Southampton, where a bunch of thugs turn up and start attacking the police. And the reason I think that he's a hypocrite is because I want to remind you, we just had... We had Ashok remind us about the story of the murder of Sarah Everard by the Met Police officer Wayne Cousins.

10:29Piers Morgan:Now, that too sparked anti-police protests, but at the time, Nigel Farage said, we must not allow the tragic murder of a young woman turn into attacks on men and attacks on the police. Very, very different language and rhetoric to what he used this time round. What's the difference? So, a few things to unpack there. I don't think that the public are robots and wait for Nigel Farage to voice anger. Well, the family specifically said they didn't want people to use it for the reason that he then exactly used it for. So you say there was a backlash against what Nigel said. It was a backlash amongst the political class.

11:08I think what you'll find... But the family deliberately said they didn't want people

11:11Piers Morgan:using it for political motivation. But he's not using it for political motivation. No, it is not the job of politicians to suppress the public's anger. It is the job... Is it their job to whip the public into a rage where they start attacking policemen? No, no, no. And if so, why didn't he do that over the murder of Sarah Everard? You're conflating two issues. Well, two people got killed by... Hang on. Two people got killed, one by a police officer and one by... Because... Well, one by a young Sikh, but you could argue that the inaction of the police, based on the reasons we saw from what Kaizen said about the presumption of believing the allegation that the victim had been racist, that you could argue the same thing had happened there.

11:52Piers Morgan:And yet Nigel Farage decided to make political capital whipping up a rage amongst a mob with this one, but not with the other one. Are you going to let me answer? It's a two-tier reaction. I don't think it's a two-tier reaction. I think when I saw that video, I felt cold rage. The public felt rage. And he's not talking about rage against Sikhs. He's not talking about rage against each other, rage against the community. He's talking about rage at a system that treats people differently according to the colour of their skin. And naming that anger is not what caused people to protest. It's the actual video.

12:26I find it remarkable that people are focusing on the reaction as opposed to the content of that video. He wants to be Prime Minister of the country, for God's sake. So I have teenage boys. I have teenage boys of that age. And I do not want them growing up in a country where if they are stabbed and the police arrived and they are not believed, naming that anger is not what caused people to protest.

12:46Piers Morgan:But why did Nigel Farage urge, in light of what happened here, why did he not urge the same restraint he urged after the murder of Sarah Edwards? Nigel did not say, go and attack the police. After Sarah Everett, he said there was no... He literally said he wanted people to react with pure, cold rage. And within 24 hours, a bunch of hooligans went down and beat up police in Southampton. So you think that those hooligans were purely reacting? Are you seriously saying that? Yeah, I am. Well, I fundamentally disprove that. Really? Who else are they reacting to? They're reacting to the video. You think they're just robots that whenever Nigel says, move, anger, they do?

13:20You have such a disrespect for the public. I'm sorry, Leela. No, no, I don't. Yes, you do. No, no, I don't respect any public that beats up...

13:26Piers Morgan:I don't respect any public that go and beat up the police, one. Secondly... Neither does Nigel. Secondly, it is incumbent on everybody, particularly in public service, politicians, to be extremely temperate with what they say in emotive moments like this. And he was the complete opposite. I don't think so. I'm sorry, this was completely cold and calculated. It was Hitlerian. It's like you see something happen... Let's remember, for ten days, he was nowhere. because he'd gotten five million pounds from a crypto creep, and he didn't want to answer any questions. And then all of a sudden, he sniffs out an opportunity, crawls out of a sewer, comes out, fuels a race riot, and then goes back into hiding.

14:07This was so obvious. All right, hang on.

14:10Piers Morgan:Let me bring in Joe Walshby when he pays you. Hang on. Hang on. Let everyone speak. Joe. Pierce, to your point, this is just hypocrisy. Why did Farage do what he did in each incident? It depends on the skin colour of the victim and the skin colour of the killer. Identity politics. Bring it down straight to identity politics, as usual. That's all you do. That's what we want. We want equality under the law. That's it. What is so hard for you to understand? That's why Nigel got outraged about this incident and called for restraint. To be clear, though, hang on, Joe. Hang on, Leila, let me handle the panel, please.

14:49Piers Morgan:It wasn't about the skin colour of the victim because they were both white, actually, in both of the cases. The difference is that you have a police officer committing the crime in the first one, and in the second one you have a young Sikh man. It is not about the Sikh man. It is not about the stabbing. It is about the stabbing victim not being believed. It is not about... You're conflating two issues. It is not about the ethnicity or skin colour of the perpetrators. Why, in the first case, was Faraj asking and demanding for restraint, and in the second case, doing the complete opposite. I don't understand.

15:22Because we have a fundamental principle in this country that it is equality under the law. Justice must see conduct and not colour.

15:31Piers Morgan:So why was there no equality in his rhetoric? The fundamental question... No, the fundamental question for you later... No, the fundamental question for the public... You may want to, as a classic young politician, you may want to reframe my questions, but my question remains the same. Why did Farage give one response over the Sarah Everard case and another to this. Because they are two fundamentally... The only difference is, in this case, a Sikh committed to crime. And we saw now there have been a number of threats against members of the Sikh community, which, by the way, is about... I'm saying it's not unlinked.

16:06Piers Morgan:I'm not saying it's caused it. I'm just saying... Hang on, let me finish. Hang on, Joe. When there is a politician who wants to be Prime Minister, who's leading in the polls, which is Nigel Farage in reform, you have to be careful what you say. When you say down the barrel of a camera, you want people to respond with pure cold rage, then you see within 24 hours that pure cold rage manifests itself on the streets of Southampton with brutality against the police. So you're saying that had he not given that speech, those people would not have attended... We won't know, will we? Well, hang on, but are you sure?

16:42Because that is the premise you're... I'm saying you shouldn't say it. No, but you are accusing him. I'm saying Farrow shouldn't have said it. So, hang on, let's reverse it. You are accusing him. Would you say it as London Mayor? Yes, I would, because it is my job to speak for the people. Yes, politicians will dance around the issue. Most people felt... I felt rage watching that. I felt sorrow, rage and disappointment at our country. And I don't think there's any issue in calling... He never called for violence. He never called for people to take to the street. What he didn't call for... Hang on, hang on there.

17:14Piers Morgan:What he didn't call for, notably, and this is where there's been a real disparity between the two incidents, he didn't call for the same restraint he called for in the case of Sarah Everard and Wayne Cousins. He didn't. And so I would like... I would simply like to know why in one case he demands restraint and in the other he demands cold rage. Because this case... I'll tell you exactly why. I want to bring in Kaizen and then I'll bring in Joe. Kaizen. OK. Well, the answer is we don't know, right, because we're not Nigel. That's true. That's true. I think what we should be identifying is what should he do?

17:46Like ideally, what should a leader do in these circumstances? And I think multiple things can be true at the same time, right? You can acknowledge the rage of the public because people are angry irrespective of what you say. You should also tell people that you can keep your emotion but don't act on it by retaliating against police officers or a member of the Sikh community or by going out in the streets and burning things. But politicians are not parents. They are not there to tell the people. That's exactly right. That's exactly what any sensible politician should do. Please don't do that because I'm not going to do it to you, OK?

18:17Thank you. And the third thing that you do is say, hey, here's what we're going to do so that this never happens again, because I think that's what people are most interested in, right? Not whether a politician takes the knee or says you should be angry or you should not be angry. And, Kais, on that point, on that point, we now know...

18:33Piers Morgan:Obviously, it's now been widely disseminated that the police up and down the country were given instructions that they should not be colourblind. In other words, they should not practice real equality in terms of how they look at these things. They should be aware of people's skin colour, ethnicity and so on. And I've always felt that is completely the wrong way for police forces to go about their job. They should obviously be colourblind, shouldn't they? I agree. The whole point of the law is that it's neutral and it's evenly applied. That's what it is to be principled. and the reaction to the George Floyd incident is to hyper-racialise everything, where now, rather than race not being a consideration at all, it's the first consideration that police are making in situations like this, which is what led to their neglectful behaviour.

19:23So, yeah, I totally agree.

19:24Piers Morgan:Yeah, Joe Walsh, you know, we saw the reaction to George Floyd. And in the moment, at the time, I watched that video, the eight-minute video of him being killed. I thought it was horrific. I thought that the worldwide anger was understandable. I had no problem with people taking my knee. I chose not to myself because I don't believe in forcing people to signal their virtue. If you want to do it, you can. I didn't do the black square on Instagram on that day either. I just don't think any of that makes any real difference. But the taking my knee became a huge global thing. You know, my football team, Arsenal, all the players took my knee.