Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson called for a review of the National Police Chiefs' Council's (NPCC) 2025 anti-racism guidance following the murder of Henry Nowak and public concerns about "two-tier policing." The NPCC is undertaking a review of its anti-racism commitment for 2025.

Watson said, "Particularly in the light of the tragic murder of Henry Nowak, I do understand that this idea that two-tier policing takes place is now widespread." He added, "I don't think it's justified, but I can understand where it's coming from." Watson said police had allowed the perception of two-tier policing to take hold in part as a result of anti-racism guidance that advised officers to treat suspects differently depending on their ethnicity.

Watson said official guidance has "over-corrected" to combat accusations of racism and "allowed the impression to take hold that we're not policing without fear or favour." He stated that forces should not "use the language of being anti-racist" because it implies officers have "some activist role." "We've adopted the language of activism," Watson said. "Of course we're fiercely opposed to racism but we're the police."

Watson said forces must be "a little less timid about making sure we emphasise our impartiality." He made the instruction to officers in 2021 not to take a knee during Black Lives Matter protests to underscore impartiality. Watson said British policing faces a greater challenge now than at any point in his nearly 40-year career and that "distrust, disorder and division" are more apparent across society than at any time since the 1980s.

Watson said it would not be surprising if widespread disorder erupted across England again this summer "given the temperature of contemporary events." He noted that social media is amplifying inflammatory rhetoric from public figures and said it was vital that police "don't do anything to fuel the fire."