The US vice-president blamed the death of the 18-year-old British student, who was fatally stabbed last year in Southampton by Vickrum Digwa, on the "mass invasion of migrants" and said the "only response" was "righteous anger".

After the post on X, the Downing Street spokesman said the Nowak family had "said they do not want his death to be used to create further division. Our politics should bring people together even in the most terrible of circumstances. That is who we are as a country", the statement added. Violent protests took place in Southampton on Tuesday following the release of bodycam footage which showed police handcuffing Nowak as he lay dying after Digwa falsely claimed to be the victim of a racist attack.

Digwa was jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years after he used a 21centimetres  (8inch) blade he said he carried as part of his Sikh faith to kill Nowak, who was walking home alone after a night out with friends on 3 December. In his post, Vance said Nowak had died "the same way a civilisation dies: abandoned and handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him". The killing had been as "tragic as it is enraging" and Nowak, he said, would still be alive today "if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants". The Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed that Digwa was born British.

The Minister for Children and Families, Josh MacAlister, also appeared to criticise Vance when he appeared on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions programme. "There are people who are trying to import that kind of toxic politics here into the UK and I don't want to have anything to do with it", he said. "I don't think we need advice from American politicians... [on] how to have effective policing here in the UK", he added. On Friday, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for an "independent rapid review" into the circumstances surrounding Nowak's death.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, on Friday, she wrote: "The questions raised about what followed are of profound public importance. "They concern not only what happened to Henry but overall public confidence in policing and the ability of our institutions to protect those they exist to serve". (BBC)