David Lammy: I told JD Vance he was wrong about Henry Nowak murder

Deputy PM says he spoke to US vice-president about post that blamed ‘mass invasion of migrants’ for teenager’s death

David Lammy has said he told the US vice-president, JD Vance, he was “wrong” to blame the murder of the British teenager Henry Nowak on mass migration.

The deputy prime minister said he spoke to Vance in a phone call on Saturday to tell him “our democratic process is working well” and that he was wrong in his commentary about the murder.

Keir Starmer suggested this week that the US was trying to interfere in British democracy after the senior Republican politician claimed in a post on X that Nowak would be alive “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”.

Lammy told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips on Sky News that he warned the vice-president that his post was “not helpful” and that the democratic process in the UK was working well.

Lammy said: “This young man has been convicted. There is an investigation into the police by the independent police complaints authority. There is an investigation into Hampshire police by the inspectorate. The AG is looking at the sentencing in relation to this.

“This has got nothing to do with mass migration. This young man was a Brit. Let’s be … clear about that, and I said, ‘Look, Mr Vice-President, you’re wrong about this,’ and it’s also the case that actually murder is coming down in the United Kingdom.”

On Saturday the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, also criticised European countries over migration, for allowing what he described as an “invasion”, during a D-Day anniversary speech in France.