There is a longstanding convention that allied nations don’t get involved in each other’s internal politics – the logic is supposed to be that because countries should cooperate on serious global issues like defence, they need to be able to work together whoever is in power.
Apparent breaches of that rule provoke a response: when Barack Obama intervened during the 2016 referendum to say that Brexit would be bad for the UK’s standing in the world, howls of outrage ensued from Britain’s right. Similarly, when activists from Labour went to the US in 2024 to campaign for the Democrats, Republicans acted as if this was appalling, despite it not being official government action.
Donald Trump’s administration, then, should have nothing to say about UK policing in the wake of the Henry Nowak murder: it is entirely a domestic matter, in a country thousands of miles away, and with no US interests at stake whatsoever.
Shorts
Naturally, Trump’s Department of State has intervened, and it has done so in such a way as to fan the flames of unrest, directly against the wishes of Nowak’s father, who pleaded for his son’s death not to be politicised.
