Starmer says UK faces new threat and ‘terrorism has changed’ after Axel Rudakubana Southport killings – latest – UK Times

Asked by the Daily Mail whether he personally considers the Southport attacks to have been terorrism, and whether further protection could be needed in schools and youth clubs, Sir Keir said: “This is a really central issue.

“This is extreme violence, clearly intended to terrorise. And my concern is that, because it is different to the sort of behaviour we’ve associated with terrorism … it’s a new and different threat – it doesn’t fit as well as it should within our framework … and that is what we’ve got to change. That is the urgent question that has to be addressed.”

The PM added: “I do think it’s new – you’ve seen versions of it in America with some of the mass shootings in schools. It is not an isolated ghastly exampe, it is in my view an example of a different kind of threat.

“And that is why I’m absolutely so determined that we will rise to that challenge and make sure our law, our response, is capable, appropriate and can deal with that sort of threat.

“But that is my concern and my thinking, that this is a new threat – individualised, extreme violence, obsessive, often following online viewing of material from all sorts of different sources. It is not a one-off. It is something that we all need to understand and have a shared undertaking to deal with in our society.

“That is not just the laws on terrorism, it is also the laws on what we can access online. We still have rules in place in this country about what we can see in a cinema and yet online you can access no end of material. We have to be sure we can rise to this new challenge.”

Asked by GB News whether he regrets blaming the far right for the summer “protests”, Sir Keir said: “Responsibility for the violence lies with those that perpetrated it.

“I was in Southport the day after these terrible murders.

“I was acknowledging and thanking the frontline police officers and ambulance [workers] who had been at the scene. You can imagine what they had been through. They were back at work the next day … I could see in their eyes the impact it had had on them, what they had to deal with, what they had to see.”

He added: “As I arrived back in London, those same officers were putting their riot gear on and having bricks thrown at them … I don’t think anybody can justify that, nor should they attempt to do so.”

Sir Keir Starmer has insisted that an inquiry is necessary to ensure “no stone is left unturned”.

Asked by the BBC whether he needs a public inquiry to tell him that the system needs to change and whether such a delay means other cases could be missed, Sir Keir said: “I think we need a public inquiry to answer all of the questions that the families, the people of Southport and the country have.”

“To ensure that no stone is unturned and every failure is dealt with.”

He added that an inquiry is also needed because Britain is dealing with a new threat of individualised extreme violence, and must have the laws in place to deal with it. However the government should not wait until the inquiry’s finish to start making those changes, Sir Keir said.

“That’s why already there’s been a review of what happened with Prevent and the findings and learnings from that, so that the mistakes that were made then would not be made today. That is really important in reassuring the public, and why we have appointed a commissioner,” the PM said.

Sir Keir Starmer has hit back at claims he covered up information about the Southport killer, saying the “only losers if the details had been disclosed would have been the victims and families”.

The prime minister has come under fire over why it was not made public that Axel Rudakubana was known to the authorities before the attacks, with critics accusing him of a “cover-up”.

And he said the killer’s trial would have collapsed if he had made public what he knew about Rudakubana.

“The only losers, if the details have been disclosed, would be the victims and the families, because of the risk that the trial would collapse. I’m never going to do that. Never going to do that, because they deserve that justice.”

There are also questions of accountablity of the Whitehall and Westminster system, Sir Keir Starmer said, calling it “a system far too often driven by circling the institutional wagons”.

He added that it too often does not react until justice is either hard won by campaigners or until appalling tragedies such as Southport finally spur a degree of action.

“Time and again we see this pattern and people are right to be angry about it,” the PM said.

“Nothing will be off the table in this inquiry – nothing. And most importantly it will lead to change.”

Apathy has become the oxygen of wider conspiracies, he warned, adding: “I want to put on record that yesterday’s guilty verdict only happened because hundreds if not thousands of dedicated public servants worked towards it, many of whom endured absolutely harrowing circumstances.”

The PM continued: “But I’m under no illusions that until the state shows the country it can change – not just what it delivers for people, but also its culture – that this atmosphere of mistrust will remain.”

Sir Keir Starmer has announced a review of the “entire counter-extremist system to make sure we have what we need to defeat it”, as he unveiled Sir David Anderson KC as the new independent 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.

But there are further questions about how to protect children from “the tidal wave of violence” online, he said, adding: “Because you can’t tell me that the material this individual viewed before committing these murders should be available on social media platforms.”

Sir Keir Starmer has hinted that the government could change the legal definition of terrorism after Axel Rudakubana’s guilty plea over the Southport attacks.

The prime minister said that, looking at the extreme details of the case, he “understands why people “wonder what the word terrorism means”. “So if the law needs to change to recognise this new and dangerous threat, then we will change it, and quickly,” Sir Keir said.

Sir Keir Starmer has said the Southport killings showed the unwritten rules that hold Britain together have been “ripped apart” in recent years.

“Children who’ve stopped going to school since the pandemic, young people who’ve opted out of work or education, more and more people retreating into parallel lives, whether through failures of integration or just a country slowly turning away from itself, wounds that politics, for all that it may have contributed, must try to heal,” the prime minister said.

He linked Rudakubana to the rise of “young men in their bedroom, accessing all manner of material online, desperate for notoriety”.

Sir Keir Starmer has defended the government from Tory and Reform claims over a lack of transparency ahead of the Southport trial – as he warned that Britain faces a new type of threat “because terrorism has changed”.

To this point, we have only been focused on justice. If this trial had collapsed because I or anyone else had revealed crucial details while the police were investigating, while the case was being built, while we were awaiting a verdict, then the vile individual who committed these crimes would have walked away a free man.

“The prospect of justice destroyed for the victims and their families. I would never do that and nobody would ever forgive me if I had. That is why the law of this country forbade me or anybody else from disclosing details sooner.

“Nonetheless it is now time for those questions. And the first of those is whether this was a terrorist attack, and 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.”

Sir Keir Starmer has warned that mistakes were clearly made after it emerged that Axel Rudakubana was referred three times to the Prevent anti-terror scheme.

The responsibility for Southport lies with “the vile individual who carried it out” but that is no comfort and no excuse, he said.

As part of the inquiry launched yesterday, “I will not let any institution of the state deflect from their failure, failure which in this case frankly leaps off the page”, the PM added.

Rudakubana was referred to Prevent on three seperate occasions, once in 2019 and twice in 2021, Sir Keir said.

“Yet on each of these occasions a judgement was made that he did not meet the threshold for intervention – a judgement that was clearly wrong and failed those families, and I acknowledge that here today.”