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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is a Global Player original podcast.
It took them less than 24 hours to turn this into an absolute shitshow. But it is what Nigel Farage does.
I mean, yesterday it was Southampton, but not that long ago it was Southport.
But I suggest the rest of us respond to this with pure, cold rage.
Chapter 2: Did Nigel Farage incite violence with his call for 'pure cold rage'?
This is a verbal tick that Farage has perfected where he can always deny what happens next.
Leaving family have asked us not to respond in the way that the leader of reform has responded. They've asked us not to. They have lost their son in the most appalling circumstance. They make a simple plea of us as human beings to please not exploit that. That is their plea to us. We all need to reflect on those words of Henry's father.
My response, and the response of others, to be fair, has been focused on the lessons to be learned so we can deliver justice. His response has been to appeal for rage. Rage. Rage. That's his response to a father who's lost his son and asked for that not to happen.
Exploiting this tragedy to create grievance and division would be wrong in any circumstances, but to do it when the family are expressly saying, please don't, is unforgivable. It shows exactly who he is.
That was Keir Starmer and the who he is is Nigel Farage because of his response to the murder of Henry Novak and seeking to make political capital out of it. It was Starmer at his withering, lacerating best.
Yeah, he was accusing the reform leader of hijacking the death of Henry Novak. And the question is, was Farage deliberately going against the wishes of the dead boy's father out of desperation? Welcome to The News Agents.
The News Agents. It's John.
It's Maitlis.
They're throwing bins. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.
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Chapter 3: What was the public and political reaction to Farage's statements?
I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.
Those were the scenes in Southampton last night where Tommy Robinson had called his supporters to protest about the police treatment of Henry Novak and sure enough they turned up. Initially to a protest outside the Southampton Central Police Station and then from there they went on to an area called St Denis which is very close to where Henry Novak was killed himself.
It's worth just stating that the area where Henry Novak was killed is 226 miles to Makerfield. And you might think the two are completely unrelated. But in a lot of the politicians' response, Makerfield is sort of uppermost in their mind, particularly on the right, where an auction seems to be going on about rage and counter-rage.
And this was Nigel Farage yesterday talking about his response to Henry Novak's death.
Think of this. The biggest fear a police officer now has going about his or her duty on the street is the fear of being reported for having acted in a way that was racially biased. That fear now greater than dealing with a dying man living on the ground. 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.
So don't respect the wishes of the family. Let us politicise it. Let us show our rage. Bring people out onto the streets and attack police officers.
Yeah, I think it's worth analysing what he does without a sort of lesson in semantics. Nigel Farage has once again gone as close as he can to what feels like incitement before stepping back and saying, oh, no, I'm just saying you might feel quite angry. You might feel angry with the system. You might feel angry with the tragedy. You might feel angry with the outcome.
I'm not suggesting you do anything.
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Chapter 4: How did the family of Henry Novak respond to the political discourse?
I'm just saying it would be normal to feel pure cold rage. This is a verbal tick that Farage has perfected where he can always deny what happens next. It wasn't him that sent people to Southampton. It wasn't him that went on the train like Tommy Robinson to go and start chanting words that were almost certainly horrifying to Henry Novak's family and friends.
You know, he can say it wasn't him that injured 11 officers, according to Hampshire police, and a police dog in Southampton. the protest that took place around Southampton last night, he was just saying, you might feel that. And what we so often see with Farage is what the journalist Adam Bienkoff calls a ramping up of racialised rhetoric.
And I do think the question that you posed a second ago, what on earth has Southampton got to do with Makerfield, is everything right now. Because there are people who are looking at Farage, who frankly hasn't been that present for the last few weeks. He's been chased by these allegations of the £5 million donation, the house that he might have bought before it or after it.
He's been chased by people who just frankly like to have a bit more accountability of the money that's been coming into his party. He's been chased by people who want to try and understand the reform candidate they've put up. the disgraceful, really grimy comments that he's made about women, about his position on Brexit, about Covid, about conspiracy theories.
There are a lot of things that Farage probably doesn't want to answer right now. And so he's leaning in to the place that he feels most comfortable, which is this very... Put very careful dog whistle, which means go and do your thing and remember who we are.
And I guess one of the questions we're asking is, is this because they're feeling politically squeezed right now in a seat that they thought they would have won quite easily?
Yeah, but it is what Nigel Farage does. I mean, yesterday it was Southampton. But not that long ago, it was Southport when he issued a video after those three girls had been brutally murdered and said, I wonder whether the truth is being held from us. I don't know. Just a dog whistle that it was probably a terrorist and that it was an Islamic extremist who had committed the murders.
No, it was a very, very deeply disturbed young man who had... You know, there should have been greater action against him much earlier on. It was an absolute failure by the authorities. But that is what Nigel Farage did. And that brought the accusation, if you remember, that, you know, Nigel Farage is Tommy Robinson in a suit.
Exactly what you were just saying about he doesn't go as far as Tommy Robinson. There is always that just that enough distance between him and what is said. And yet you have to put this in the political context of the make a field by election where reform think they have a great shot of beating Andy Burnham, the Labour candidate who would then be probably crowned the prime minister, except.
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Chapter 5: What implications does the Makerfield by-election have for Farage's rhetoric?
That Nigel Farage is being outflanked on the right by Rupert Lowe's party, Restore, and has suddenly seen in the opinion polls Restore at something like 7% or whatever, which could stop a reform victory.
And this is where it gets complicated, because last night I spotted, I think... Three iterations of what we would call populist right parties, all trying to work out who they were throwing shade at and who they were now siding with over this exact issue. Rupert Lowe's Restore Party has come down, I think, on the side of Kemi Badenoch. Against Nigel Farage. You've got the tweet.
Yeah, it is extraordinary because you would think that Rupert Lowe's party, Restore, positions itself normally to the right of Nigel Farage and the more kind of aggressive we've got to deport illegal immigrants. But Rupert Lowe came out last night and attacked what. Nigel Farage and an ad that Reform had put out, kind of misrepresenting what Kemi Badenoch had said.
And he goes, to weaponise his death, this is Rupert Lowe, to weaponise Novak's death so vindictively in order to make a viciously deceitful graphic, attacking a political opponent is low. I am not in the same party as Kemi Badenoch. In fact, we are competing for votes in Makerfield. I disagree with her on a great many number of policies. I would never manipulate the death...
I would never manipulate the death of an innocent young man to score petty party political points, especially using such blatant lies.
Yeah, I mean, Kemi Badenoch has played, we should say, a very straight bat on this. She has effectively supported the prime minister's position. The tragedy is unacceptable. The policing was unacceptable. It needs to be thoroughly investigated. And I think they're waiting for the police inquiry to take place. But what she said was, I don't care about black lives. I don't care about white lives.
You know, I want to get to the bottom of this. And reform essentially just took out the... The only clip was, I don't want to hear about white lives. And like, she doesn't care about white lives. I mean, just ridiculous and so easily demonstrably false. But it is interesting to see, I guess, the age old adage, my enemy's enemy becomes my friend.
So now Rupert Lowe is backing Kemi Badenoch because he feels that his enemy here is Farage. The Prime Minister actually thanked Kemi Badenoch in the Commons today for her response and her handling of this.
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Chapter 6: What does Jeremy Hunt say about the challenges of political reelection?
And we are into what feels like quite new territory, which is the two main parties, what were formerly the main parties, are feeling like the grown-ups in the room now. And this horrible swirl of misinformation and racialised ramping up is all happening in the sort of hard right periphery of who can say the most shocking thing because they think that's where the British public is.
And actually, my sense is the British public is not there at all. The British public is frankly with the family of Henry Novak. And all you have to do is go back to that poor boy's father who must have anticipated this, who could have seen, as we all could, this coming and said, I don't want any more hatred, any more division, any more tension to come of this. And it took them less than 24 hours.
to turn this into an absolute shitshow?
Look, it boils down to... We played Nigel Farage's statement earlier. It was like, you know, Henry Novak's dad might want this, but I've got a by-election to fight. So I've got to win the by-election and I'll do it by whatever means possible. And if that means stirring up the pot over this issue...
and make capital out of the tragic, appalling, horrendous death of a young man, then maybe I will do it because it will serve the political ends that I seek. And I, you know, to your question, Emily, I hope you're right. I hope you're right that this is not where the British public opinion is. But, you know, Farage is a very, very clever and canny political operator.
And presumably he thinks this will play well in Makerfield. And that is why he has done it. And that is he hopes will help his candidate win that by election.
Yeah, well, one thing that he will be talking about today and he will be concentrating on is just to complicate the story even further. is a move overnight by police chiefs who have said they're reviewing this is their words anti-racism guidance that suggests officers should treat ethnic minorities differently in order to ensure equality of outcomes.
Now, the Times bizarrely has sort of seized again half of this and said, oh, you see, that's a case of two-tier policing. It's an admission of two-tier policing, something that the Prime Minister said in PMQ today he does not believe happens. I think what the police chiefs are trying to explain is that they have
Try to give guidance for officers who are attending a scene where there may be sensitivities involved, whether it is different religions, different races, whether it is people with disabilities, whether it's people with different mental conditions. The police have to arrive at the scene and know that there will be sensitivities.
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Chapter 7: How do politicians navigate the balance between policy and public opinion?
You know how bloody difficult it is to arrive in an emergency on a 999 call in the dark and try and make sense of what happens. And we should just, to go back a step, remember that when the police got that call from the brother of Henry Novak's attacker, murderer, They were told that there had been a racially aggravated crime.
In other words, they had been explicitly told that they were arriving at the scene where they had been a racially aggravated attack. It was dark. I mean, the big question in my head is, for Christ's sake, bring a torch. You know, there should never have been that moment where they didn't understand that a poor boy was bleeding on the ground. There should never have been that moment.
But you can understand the mindset of police who have just received a call. They think they're arriving at one thing and they don't understand what's going on. And they've heard this very clear sort of excuse, right, from a man who I think is now being investigated by police over what actually happened.
And so the idea that police chiefs are saying, well, we're going to review this because we don't want to give anyone, anyone justification for for saying that we have a two-tier policing system, is still going to lead some people to say, aha, you see, it was happening all along.
I think it's an entirely legitimate question to ask about whether there was two-tier policing. In this particular case, something absolutely bloody dreadful has happened where, you know, the police get a call, racially aggravated attack, they take, they believe... the attacker rather than the victim.
And, you know, and instead of this kid being read his last rights as he lay there dying, he is being read his rights as someone who has just been arrested. And that is truly horrendous. So, yeah, it's fair play.
Look, nobody's denying something went absolutely, tragically, horrifically wrong.
Let that investigation continue. take place if there needs to be a course correction because maybe the police having been accused of being institutionally racist then have gone maybe too far in the other direction let that be examined let that be calmly looked at and if there needs to be rewording of the advice that police officers get during their training then fine
But don't whip it up immediately now when before that work has taken place and just try to sow further division in a society and make life for police officers who, you know, try and hold order by consent. don't make their jobs more difficult than the difficulties they already face.
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Chapter 8: What are the potential consequences of two-tier policing in the UK?
And, you know, having lived in the States for eight years, give me the policing of the UK by consent rather than policing at the barrel of a gun by force that you get in America. I think our police service, huge force. We've seen all sorts of incidents where we think, my God, the police have acted appallingly in the way that they have behaved.
But overwhelmingly, I think they're trying to do a very difficult job and they try to do it very well indeed.
Just to go back to the Commons for a moment, there was a curious moment of, I think what I'm going to call possible stage management. A Labour MP... raised the question of Henry Novak after a Prime Minister's questions that, frankly, fairly, to Kemi Badenoch, had been dominated by a discussion of welfare reform.
And I think it actually made her point that if you don't want to politicise something, then you choose something else to attack the Prime Minister on. She did. She went for welfare reform. But much later in that sort of half hour came a question from a Labour MP about the murder of Henry Novak. And the Prime Minister gave a very considered, very
thoughtful response to that about the importance of not politicising this tragedy. And as he finished speaking, the next person to get to his feet was Nigel Farage. And again, I just want you to listen to the phrasing of this question, because you're always trying with Farage to hear the words and then read between the lines. Just take a listen.
In the horrendous circumstances of Henry Novak's death, can I urge the Prime Minister to consider this? It is now clear to growing millions in this country that we're living under two-tier policing. The instructions that are given... Two police officers from police bosses are clear and written down in ink. It says you must treat different ethnic groups in different ways.
That, apart from the upset and the anger at the circumstances of his death, the anger that you saw spilling out in Southampton last night... and which is in danger of getting considerably worse. If the public lose trust in being treated fairly by the police, can he take some action, end this divisive practice of two-tier policing and make sure that all British citizens are treated the same? Yes.
Just look at what happened there. He talks about it being in danger of getting worse. He talked about it spilling out onto the streets. Violence doesn't just spill out onto the streets. It emerges onto the streets when people like him incite it.
And as you saw, if you watch that video, that little clip, you will have seen Luke Taylor, Danny Chambers, Tulip Dem sitting behind him who are enraged by his words, who are saying, you incited that, you did that, you provoked that. And he is ignoring all the commons cries. He's ignoring all the people saying shame on you to make his point that, oh, we wouldn't want this to get worse, would we?
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