The response to a student’s death at the hands of a knife-obsessed attacker on the streets of Southampton has left a muddled and upsetting mood in its wake.

For those who believe that this was an example of what Nigel Farage terms “two-tier policing”, the police’s mistaken handcuffing of Henry Nowak, after his assailant accused him of racism, was a glaring error.

Courtesy of the magnification of social media and a desire to make it stand for something far larger, there has been a lively competition to make a horrible murder into a cause célèbre.

That is precisely what Mr Nowak’s family begged should not happen, but the voices of those genuinely grieving his death are now sidelined by those who want to deploy the case to sharpen their own appeal: Farage’s Reform UK and its apostate off-shoot Restore Britain, led by Rupert Lowe.

Lowe has claimed the police bias in the Nowak case was “conscious” and seeded by “DEI” (diversity, equality and inclusion) training, though that link is tenuous. Farage called for “pure cold range” from the public in response to the murder.

This fight on the right has led rapidly to a bidding war for votes. But it is not limited to the fevered aftermath of this case – and its impacts will be felt in the upcoming Makerfield by-election and the electoral firefight beyond.

It is totemic of a sharpening contest between a party of the populist right (Reform) and the hard right (Restore) competing for disaffected voters. The immediate effect in this past week has........

© iNews