The U.S. State Department’s official account posted Thursday that “ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline” and “must be rejected across the West,” The Guardian reported. The tweet followed the murder of British student Henry Nowak, whose death has intensified UK debate over immigration and policing.
Vice President JD Vance amplified the administration’s criticism in a tweet late Friday, writing: “Henry Nowak died the same way a civilization dies.” Vance added that Nowak would 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.”
The State Department’s intervention marked a shift from prior diplomatic practice. In previous administrations, responses to such an event would have required “deliberations, memos and meetings,” The Guardian reported, citing unnamed U.S. diplomats.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded Friday by accusing Elon Musk of “interfering in our politics” and “trying to whip up division,” according to The Guardian. Musk, who owns X, has posted multiple messages supporting anti-immigration rallies and Tommy Robinson, a far-right figure who was hosted at the State Department earlier this year.
The Trump administration has adopted a more confrontational public posture toward the UK. In addition to hosting Robinson, the State Department has crowdsourced deportation targets on X and portrayed the UK and Europe as engaged in censorship, The Guardian reported.
Samuel Samson, a deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, has advocated for a legal defense fund for French far-right politician Marine Le Pen and defended Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland from being labeled “extremist,” the outlet reported. Samson wrote that “across Europe, governments have weaponized political institutions against their own citizens and against our shared heritage.”
President Donald Trump has a personal feud with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, whom he has falsely accused of trying to impose sharia law and under whose tenure he said London has become ridden with “the stabbings and the dirt and the filth,” according to The Guardian.
Some U.S. diplomats have said the UK “had this coming,” The Guardian reported, pointing to senior Labour figures including Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy who voiced support for George Floyd after his 2020 killing by a Minneapolis police officer. These diplomats argue that U.S. officials are now “speaking their conscience” to defend a white man against what they describe as double standards.