The Neo-Nazi and Far-Right Coalition that Converged on Southampton Over Henry Nowak’s Murder

Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups are using anger over the murder of the white 18-year-old student Henry Nowak by a Sikh man as a recruiting ground for their cause, with prominent members taking part in violent protests on Tuesday.

Violence erupted at a protest held on Tuesday night in Southampton, near the site where 18-year-old student Henry Nowak was murdered, following the sentencing of the killer, Vickrum Digwa. The demonstration started outside Southampton police station, before gathering close to the Digwa family home in the Portswood area.

Feeding on the pain and heartbreak felt by the local community, members of the organised far-right from across the country descended on the area. The event prominently featured far-right agitator Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), who earlier that day had posted a video announcing his presence and telling supporters to join him there.

But among the crowd were also known members of neo-Nazi groups.

The demonstration at points saw chants of ‘White Power’ and the Nazi-adopted ’14 words’ creed urging people to secure the future of “white children.” Anti-fascist magazine Searchlight reported Nazi salutes being performed by masked men at the front of the march.

The march later turned violent, with two initial arrests and 11 officers injured as the crowd clashed with police.

Searchlight reported that Luke Jahn of the National Rebirth Party, its Portsmouth branch organiser, was at the front of the crowd, during confrontations which resulted in riot police being brought in.

NRP is a fascist micro-party led by Alek Yerbury, who styles himself on Adolf Hitler. The group is an extremist splinter organisation from the far-right group Patriotic Alternative. Jahn was pictured alongside members of neo-Nazi group ‘White Vanguard’.

The group had also previously organised an initial ‘vigil’ for Henry Nowak on Sunday 31 May which saw around 70 attendees including approximately 40 White Vanguard members. Many of them were wearing all black, in what Stand Up to Racism called “1940s fascist cosplay”. SUTR counter-protested the event to oppose avowed racists using the murder as a chance to spread extremist ideologies.

Both Socialist Worker and the Viktor Orban-linked Hungarian Conservative identify Sunday’s event as organised by White Vanguard, outside Portswood Police Station.

UKIP leader Nick Tenconi spoke at the most recent rally, pledging “mass deportations” and to “reinstate Christianity back into the heart of government”. He claimed Nowak’s killer had a mindset “representative of perhaps millions of non-whites across the world who have been indoctrinated to this left-wing terrorism.” Tenconi was recently accused of performing a Nazi salute. Paul Golding, the leader of Britain First, also attended the rally.

One prominent live-stream of the event monetised it heavily throughout with constant prompts to like, subscribe and donate, repeated thanks for PayPal and ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ donations, and discussion of view counts – peaking around 20,000–21,000 concurrently, with claims of a prior stream hitting over a million views.

There was a strong Christian nationalist element, with a pastor, Chris Wickland of the Living Word Church Network in Fareham, addressing the crowds. He demanded the Prime Minister apologise and “bow the knee” to Henry Nowak, framed Islam as a “false god” and called Britain “a Christian nation” before leading one of several mass prayers. During the event, he claimed that children were “being sacrificed on the altar for political correctness and multiculturalism.”

Also in attendance were the actor-turned far-right agitator Laurence Fox. Before it had turned violent, he told the crowd “your fury and rage are completely justified,” while anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen (also known as Posie Parker) spoke as “a mother of three sons” and attacked supposed ‘critical race theory’ teaching in schools.

One speaker told the protest: “There’s no way that getting violent is going to solve anything like that. We need political change. We need social change and we need cultural change and that’s what we’re here for.” But the march nevertheless descended into violence near Portswood, the home of the Digwa family. Police were pelted with bricks, bottles, stones, flares, an office chair, a scooter, plant pots and fence panels.

According to a sympathetic live-streamer, at least one attendee “stuck the boot in” to an officer, while police used pepper spray and a fire extinguisher on the crowd.

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Against the Family’s Wishes

The disorder and far-right opportunism directly went against Nowak’s family’s wishes.

Henry’s father said outside the courtroom: “We want to use Henry’s heartbreaking story to make change for the better. We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred, or tension, we want his story to make our streets safer for everyone. That is why we are calling on the government to treat knife crime as the national emergency that it is.”

On Tuesday, before the protest, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage called for “pure cold rage” in response to the case, with X owner Elon Musk amplifying similar incendiary rhetoric. Both PM Keir Starmer and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch have criticised Nigel Farage for his response to the murder. Far-right Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe is also using the murder to call for the return of the death penalty in the UK.

Organising Tuesday’s rally was Southampton Patriots, and other prominent south coast anti-migrant groups attended, as well as flag-hoisting group Raise the Colours (RTC).

While not understood to be white supremacists, other attendees had interesting backstories. Ben Cullen, a Raise the Colours member from Oxford, live-streamed the event on Facebook.

The Oxford Mail reported that in 2019, Cullen pepper sprayed a man in a pub garden because he felt he had been wrongly accused of stealing a bike. As Hope Not Hate relayed: “The attack occurred within the vicinity of other pubgoers, including children, and a staff member on her break vomited due to the noxious fumes. Witnesses described hearing ‘shouts of pain’ from members of the public in the garden.”

The Oxford Mail also reported that Cullen has previous convictions for weapons and violence, including possession of a firearm. The paper reported that in 2019, “he was in a ‘downward spiral’ in which he was drinking heavily and, according to reports, ‘taking £300 of cocaine a day’.” The lawyer claimed he had since turned his life around and quit drugs, according to the paper.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and owner of Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter) has been a vocal amplifier of far-right commentary on the case. He tweeted: “Did you know that official police policy requires them to be racist against Whites? It is deeply wrong and must change NOW”. And he re-tweeted another post claiming the murder – by a British Sikh – showed “this is why mass immigration must be ended”. In another, he shared an account stating: “Leftists killed Henry Nowak”, adding “Yes, they did.”

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister responded to the violent scenes by calling the attacks on police officers “disgraceful and unacceptable” and said it was “time for serious work, not rage”. Keir Starmer added that anyone found engaging in disorder would meet “the full force of the law”.

Chief Constable Alexis Boon said: “We understand and appreciate as police officers that we are accountable for our actions. What we ask, however, is that those actions are judged through fair and transparent processes. In this case, that process is already under way with the IOPC conducting their independent investigation.

“What we, as a society, cannot accept is the violent scenes we saw in Southampton last night. Some clearly arrived intent on causing disorder and trouble. We saw bottles thrown, makeshift weapons used, damage caused to the homes and vehicles of innocent residents and threats and violence directed towards our officers.”

Additional reporting by Olly Haynes.

This piece has been amended to correct a reference to the meaning of the ’14 words’.

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