Keir Starmer says Britain is facing a ‘new threat of terrorism from loners’
Sir Keir Starmer has described the Southport attack as a ‘devastating moment in our history’ and warned of a new type of terrorism threat from ‘loners’.
Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street in central London this morning, he 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 organized 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 but notoriety, sometimes inspired by traditional terrorist groups, but fixated on that extreme violence, seemingly for its own sake.’
It comes after Axel Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and the attempted murder of eight other children as well as two adults – Leanne Lucas and Jonathan Hayes – yesterday afternoon.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were all killed in the knife attack at The Hart Space in the Merseyside town on July 29 last year.
Concerns had been raised about Rudakubana’s violent behaviour at school, and he had been referred to counter-terror scheme Prevent three times since he was 13 – once over his interest in killing children in a school massacre.
But Prevent decided he had no terrorist motivations and posed no terrorist threat.
As a result, questions have been asked over whether the UK’s Prevent programme – designed to deradicalise those with terrorist sympathies – needs to adopt a new approach.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who attended Starmer’s speech this morning with Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, confirmed Rudakubana had been referred to Prevent three times between December 2019 and April 2021.
Yesterday evening she announced there would be an inquiry into how the state failed to identify the risk posed by the Southport killer.
She said the country needed ‘independent answers’ on Prevent and other agencies’ contact with the ‘extremely violent’ Rudakubana and ‘how he came to be so dangerous’.
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