University of Southampton student Henry Nowak (18) was fatally stabbed on 3 December 2025 by Vickrum Digwa (23), a British Sikh. Digwa used a 21‑centimetre blade he had been carrying on him. Although Britain has a ban on carrying knives, Sikhs are exempt. Sikhs in the UK are legally allowed to carry a kirpan because it is a religious symbol and one of the five articles of faith. Similarly, Scots may carry their sgian dubh as part of traditional dress. The law grants an exemption, but it is not absolute. And a classic ceremonial kirpan certainly isn’t 21 cm long, even though its permitted length is not precisely defined in legislation.
When the police arrived, they believed Digwa’s lies that he had been the victim of racial abuse and handcuffed the dying Nowak, who repeatedly said he had been stabbed. He died shortly afterwards. In May 2026, Digwa was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years. A deeply unfortunate case that undoubtedly requires thorough investigation.
As soon as the story appeared in the media, a racist mob led by Tommy Robinson descended on the streets of Southampton — Robinson being a self‑styled crusader against paedophiles and a supposed “human rights defender”. It’s worth noting that white paedophiles don’t bother him (many of those convicted of child sexual abuse are his former comrades from the English Defence League). Just a few weeks ago, a group of white paedophiles stood trial, and Tommy Robinson — surprise, surprise — wasn’t clowning around outside the courthouse as he always does when the perpetrators have darker skin.
But because the killer Digwa is a Sikh, Robinson is suddenly very interested again. And he’s not the only clown in this circus. The story also made it into Czech media, and Czech commentators immediately jumped on the racist bandwagon. One of them is “security expert” Milan Mikulecký — a man who failed to obtain a security clearance and had to leave the Ministry of Defence because he concealed that he had previously worked for the Russians. This “expert” published an article on Novinky titled “White Britons Have Trouble Breathing in Their Own Country”. I immediately asked myself whether I personally have trouble breathing.
Unlike Mikulecký, I interact and communicate daily with dozens of people of all nationalities, races and religions. In my work team I’ve had Filipinos, Albanians, Kosovars, Ghanaians, Angolans, Lithuanians, Croats and even Colombians. And of course also English people — white and Black. Muslims, Christians and even a Buddhist. Naturally, you can’t avoid disagreements or the occasional argument. In the more than 11 years I’ve lived in Britain, it happened only once that someone falsely accused me of racism because I asked him to follow the same rules as everyone else. Luckily, that guy didn’t pull a knife on me like Digwa did on Nowak. But to generalise based on one isolated incident and claim that I “can’t breathe” in Britain? No, I really can’t say that. On the contrary, I breathe very well here.
Into all this stepped US Vice President JD Vance, who declared that the murder was “a consequence of migration”. I’d like to remind this unwise man that both Henry Nowak and his killer Vickrum Digwa were born in England. Both were British. And both were descendants of migrants — Digwa from an Indian family, Nowak with a Polish father. But there’s another curious trait these self‑appointed defenders of civilisation seem to share: a strange embarrassment about their own names. Tommy Robinson is actually named Stephen Christopher Yaxley‑Lennon, but that apparently doesn’t sound militant enough. And JD Vance was born James Donald Bowman. He later renamed himself James David Hamel, and eventually ended up with the current version, James David Vance. One might almost say that these warriors against the “loss of identity” have the biggest problem with their own.