We assume that vice-president JD Vance was playing American political games when he chose to opine on the murder of Henry Nowak, the Southampton student. Mr Vance’s contribution was arrogant, ignorant and offensive.
He claimed that the 18-year-old’s death was the mark of a dying “civilisation” and that he 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, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it”.
Mr Vance’s unwelcome comments came after the US state department posted a comment on the murder on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk: “Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilisational decline.”
Perhaps Mr Vance did not want to be outdone by a department headed by Marco Rubio, his rival for the Republican nomination for the presidency. Whoever is the nominee, one of the issues in the 2028 election campaign will be immigration, and one of the ways in which American politicians can strike poses on it is by portraying Europe as a crime-ridden hellhole overwhelmed by non-white immigration. In some ways it is easier for them to do so, given that neither they nor their voters know much about us.
They have no idea, for example, that murder rates in Britain and the whole of Europe are a fraction of those in the US. Or that crime generally has fallen significantly in Britain over the past 30 years (many British people do not know that, to be fair; it is one of those issues on which perception is different from reality).
So Sir Keir Starmer was entirely right to respond politely but robustly to Mr Vance’s uncouth and undiplomatic comments. The prime minister was justified in accusing unnamed foreign actors of “seeking to stir up division on our streets” and urging these unnamed agitators to “respect the wishes” of Henry Nowak’s family, who said they did not wish his death to be used to create hatred or tension.
Sir Keir went further, however. He accused outside forces of “trying to interfere in our democracy”. By this, we assume that he did not mean just Mr Vance, or even just Mr Vance, Mr Rubio and Donald Trump (who repeatedly says that Britain is “going to hell” because of immigration).
We assume that the prime minister is also referring to Mr Musk, who uses X with all the irresponsibility of the worst media proprietors of the past to amplify the views of Maga Republicans, and to promote his own, often even more extreme and even less informed, views about Britain.
Mr Musk has used his platform to promote the Restore Britain party formed by Rupert Lowe, the MP too toxic for Nigel Farage. This is no mere transatlantic exchange of views about political philosophy – it is a direct interference in British politics. Rebecca Shepherd, the Restore Britain candidate in the Makerfield by-election, appears to be taking sufficient support from Robert Kenyon, the Reform candidate, to affect the outcome of the by-election.
This is unacceptable. Our democracy must be protected. The government has only recently tightened the rules on foreign donations to British parties. But the rules on foreign ownership of the media need to be looked at again to ensure that a foreign plutocrat such as Mr Musk cannot use his poison factory to seek to influence British elections.
Mr Musk is entitled to his views – of course he is – but he is not entitled to use his money to buy influence in British politics.