Minister criticises police anti-racism guidance following riot over Henry Nowak death – UK politics live

Good morning. Keir Starmer spoke for many people yesterday when he said that he felt “sick” watching the video of Henry Nowak being handcuffed as he lay dying, while a police officer who had been told Nowak had committed a racist assault ignored Nowak saying he had been stabbed. Starmer’s was a good faith response to the tragedy, which saw Nowak’s killer jailed for life on Monday .

But there have been plenty of bad faith responses to the murder too, which culminated in rioting in Southampton last night. Here is our overnight story about yesterday’s events.

Sarah Jones, the policing minister, has been giving interviews this morning. Speaking to Times Radio, she said the rioting was unacceptable and she said there had been two arrests, “one for assault of a police officer, one for possession of a weapon”.

double quotation mark We are urging that people take the anger that they feel, which I understand, but let’s allow justice to do its course, and let’s not over-react, which indeed is what the family are asking us to do as well.”

Shabana Mahmood , the home secretary, issued her own statement last night.

In her interviews this morning, Jones also said the government wanted an official “police anti-racism commitment” reviewed. In the Commons yesterday Chris Philp , the shadow home secretary, saying that this document was “morally wrong”, claiming that it “urges police forces to reverse engineer the same arrest rates between ethnic groups, even though the offending rates are different, by treating different ethnic groups differently”. (In fact it does not say that, although arguably that it what its call for “equality of policing outcomes for people from different ethnic groups” implies.) In the Commons Mahmood gave a non-committal response to Philp. But now the Home Office wants it reconsidered

Asked about the document, Jones told BBC Breakfast that the National Police Chiefs’ Council were reviewing the document. She went on:

double quotation mark We don’t think that language is is right.