Sir Keir Starmer has warned that “terrorism has changed” and Britain faces a new kind of threat, as the prime minister addressed the nation over the Southport attack.
A public inquiry was announced on Monday into the murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July, after Axel Rudakubana – then aged 17 – pleaded guilty to the knife attack which sparked a wave of far right-inspired race riots across swathes of the UK.
As legal restrictions protecting the integrity of the trial were lifted, it emerged that Rudakubana – who also admitted producing the deadly poison ricin and posessing an al-Qaeda training manual – had previously been referred three times to the anti-extremism programme Prevent.
Speaking from Downing Street on Tuesday morning, Sir Keir insisted that Southport must be “a line in the sand for Britain” as he vowed “fundamental change” in how the government protects its citizens.
Warning that the UK faces a new threat from lone individuals fixated by extreme violence seemingly for its own sake, the prime minister strongly indicated that the UK’s longstanding legal definition of terrorism – as requiring an ideological motivation – could be overhauled.
Firmly rejecting claims of a “cover-up” which served to fuel the riots, and addressing the criticism that the Southport attack had not been classed as terrorism, Sir Keir said: “The blunt truth here is that this case is a sign Britain now faces a new threat – terrorism has changed.
“In the past, the predominant threat was highly organised groups with clear political intent, groups like al-Qaeda. That threat, of course, remains.
“But now alongside that we also see acts of extreme violence perpetrated by loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom accessing all manner of material online, desperate for notoriety. Sometimes inspired by traditional terrorist groups, but fixated by that extreme violence seemingly for its own sake.”
Likening such killers to school shooters in America, the prime minister vowed not to wait for the inquiry to conclude before taking action, and unveiled Sir David Anderson KC – formerly the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation – as the new commissioner for Prevent.
Sir David will “hold this system to account” and “shine a light into its darkest corners so the British people can have confidence that action will follow words”, Sir Keir said.
The PM’s remarks echoed those of Sir David’s successor, Jonathan Hall KC – the current terror watchdog – who told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday that Prevent “needs to change because of the internet”.
He said: “Prevent will look at individuals who come across their radar, and then counter-terrorism police will be asking themselves, ‘is this the sort of person who we ought to help, given our terrorism remit?’
“You’ll sometimes get cases where counter-terrorism police will say, ‘ultimately, we just don’t think we can say this guy’s on the trajectory to becoming a terrorist, and so he’s not for us’. The question is, who do they then hand the risk over to?”
Speaking to BBC Radio Wales, journalist Lizzie Dearden – author of Plotters: The UK Terrorists Who Failed – said that officials at Prevent would likely argue that they are constrained by the way that the scheme is built around the UK’s current legal definition of terrorism.
Pointing to the mass shooting in Plymouth in 2021, she said: “That was the deadliest shooting this country had seen since the Dunblane massacre. It wasn’t declared a terrorist attack for the same reason [as Southport].”
Ms Dearden expressed surprise that the government was showing an appetite to take on the thorny task of reviewing the current definition, an issue previously the preserve of “disquiet and mutterings among sections of the police and security infrastructure”.
“Clearly this incident – which I should say is actually part of a much wider pattern, and is not out of the blue or really a suprise to the security services in any way – has clearly been enough to tip that discussion over,” she said.
In his address, Sir Keir also took aim at social media firms as he warned of further questions about how to protect children from “the tidal wave of violence” online, saying: “You can’t tell me that the material this individual viewed before committing these murders should be available on social media platforms.”
Home secretary Yvette Cooper later told the Commons that the Southport inquiry would also consider the wider challenge of rising youth violence and extremism, warning that she had been “deeply disturbed” at the number of teenagers drawn into extremism and serious violence.
There has been a threefold increase in the number of under-18s investigated over involvement in terrorism in just three years, Ms Cooper said – with 162 people referred to Prevent last year over concerns relating to school massacres.
Ms Cooper said: “So many of our teenagers are being exposed to ever more disturbing materials online – an online ecosystem that is radicalising our children while safety measures are whittled away.”
While prosecutors will set out more details in court on Thursday ahead of Rudakubana’s sentencing about the killer’s online activity, Ms Cooper said the government was already contacting technology companies to ask them to remove dangerous material that he accessed.
“Companies should not be profiting from hosting content that puts children’s lives at risk,” she said.
Revealing that Rudakubana had admitted to having carried a knife more than 10 times, Ms Cooper added: “Yet the action against him was far too weak. And despite the fact he’d been convicted for violence and was just 17, he was easily able to order a knife on Amazon.
“That’s a total disgrace, and it must change. So, we will bring in stronger measures to tackle knife sales online in the Crime and Policing Bill this spring.”
