Analysis | MP calls for the death penalty, leans on a single Black defendant - and collapses under scrutiny
The cases Rupert Lowe ignores - including white offenders convicted of racist killings - reveal a pattern that raises questions about bias in his argument
During Prime Minister’s Questions this week (12 November), Independent MP Rupert Lowe pressed Keir Starmer to hold a referendum on bringing back the death penalty for “undeniable cases” of murder, rape and stabbings.
These incidents are “far too often perpetrated by someone who should not be in our country to begin with,” Lowe said.
Starmer shut it down immediately.
He argued that capital punishment has failed historically and risks killing innocent people, while the focus should be on improving “the criminal justice response in this country”.
Lowe doubled down online, writing: “Yes. If it were up to me, Axel Rudakubana would have received the death penalty… I would vote yes in a referendum.”
But there’s a glaring problem with Lowe’s argument. It appears to hinge on cases involving perpetrators from minoritised communities.
He has not appeared to apply the same standard to a long list of brutal murders committed by white offenders - cases that, by his own logic, would also meet the threshold for the “undeniable” brutality he says warrants execution.
Here are just a few recent examples he did not cite:
The Clifton arson murders (Nottingham, 2022)
Jamie Barrow, a white man, was convicted of killing Fatoumatta Hydara, 28, and her daughters, Naeemah (aged 1) and Fatimah Drammeh (aged 3), after deliberately setting their flat on fire
The murder of Hubert ‘Isaac’ Brown (Bristol, 2023)
Christina Howell, a white woman, fatally stabbed 61-year-old Hubert Brown, a Black man, in broad daylight. This year, she was handed a hospital order under the Mental Health Act, after previously admitting to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility
The killing of Bhim Kohli (Leicestershire, 2024)
Mr Kohli, an 80-year-old Asian grandfather, was attacked while walking his dog.
A white 15-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl were convicted of his manslaughter
The prison killing of Sundeep Ghuman (Belmarsh, 2020)
Stevie Hilden, a white inmate, murdered 31-year-old Sundeep Ghuman, an Asian man, inside Belmarsh, using a table leg. He received 15 years
The list of potential candidates is endless, really, from Benjamin Monk, who killed Dalian Atkinson in 2021 by tasering him to the ground and kicking him in the head while serving as a police officer, to David Norris - who’s in prison for his role in the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 - and more.
Lowe even ignores cases like the racist killing of 15-year-old Rolan Adams, murdered in 1991 by Mark Thornborrow, a white gang member who served just over a decade before release.
If the MP truly believed in applying capital punishment consistently, these examples would feature heavily in his rhetoric. They don’t.
Polling shows the UK is split but leaning slightly in favour of reintroducing the death penalty: 50% support it, 45% oppose it. Support is particularly high among Reform and Conservative voters.
But numbers don’t erase the reality Starmer highlighted: miscarriages of justice exist, policing is uneven with disparities most affecting Black communities - and once the state executes the wrong person, there is no correction.
And the list doesn’t end there
If Lowe were serious about applying his proposed death penalty referendum consistently, he would also need to address cases like:
Dea-John Reid’s killing (Birmingham, 2021)
The 14-year-old Black boy was chased down and stabbed to death after being “hunted like prey” by a group who had been hurling racial slurs. A 14-year-old boy was convicted of manslaughter, not murder. However, four others were cleared.
Christopher Kapessa’s death (Wales, 2019)
The 13-year-old Black boy died after being pushed into the River Cynon.
His mother told the inquest that the family endured racial abuse before his death.
The CPS confirmed that a prosecution was possible but chose not to pursue a trial “in the public interest”.
These cases - and many more - raise sharp questions about who is remembered, whose lives are centred in political debate and whose deaths are used as a rallying cry.
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Because, if we followed Lowe’s own logic - “brutal crimes”, “undeniable cases”, “domestic and foreign offenders” - then white offenders and offenders in racist killings would be part of his examples.
For those wondering who on earth Lowe is, he’s a 68-year-old British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth since 2024.
Elected for Reform UK, he now sits independently after being suspended from the party in March 2025 over alleged “violent threats” to a Muslim committee chair.
He leads a far-right political organisation called Restore Britain.
Restore Britain claims that “migrants didn’t build this country” and aims to “end the cancer of wokery”.
Lowe recently claimed that “anti-white racism is absolutely thriving” while attacking DEI as “poisonous”.
So, it’s also worth bearing in mind that this death penalty call isn’t Lowe’s first brush with inflammatory rhetoric and behaviour; it seems to be his thing.
It’s a pattern which makes his sudden crusade for capital punishment even more loaded.
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