Keir Starmer says terrorism has changed, Southport case is a 'sign Britain now faces a new threat'
The British prime minister said Tuesday no institution of the state deflect from their failure as last year's Southport killings "must be a line in the sand" for Britain.
"Yesterday, thankfully, a measure of justice was done, but it won't bring those girls back to their families, and it won't remove the trauma from the lives of those who were injured," he told during his address to the nation on the issue.
Starmer stressed that he will not let any institution of the state deflect from their failure, as he admitted that a judgment that was "clearly wrong," when it was decided that the perpetrator did not meet the threshold for intervention.
Starmer's address came a day after a national inquiry was announced into the Southport killing as 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty to the killings on Monday during the attack on July 29 last year in Southport, a coastal town in Merseyside.
Six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar were murdered in the stabbing attack by Rudakubana, a British citizen born in Cardiff, Wales, who was 17 at the time of the attack.
Rudakubana was referred to the Prevent anti-extremism program on three separate occasions in 2019 once, and in 2021 twice and on each of these occasions, a judgment was made that he did not meet the threshold for intervention.
"The blunt truth here is that this case is a sign Britain now faces a new threat. Terrorism has changed," said Starmer pointed out the extreme violence perpetrated by individuals.
"...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 on that extreme violence seeming only for its own sake."
During his address Starmar said he tasked David Anderson, the new independent Prevent program commissioner, "to hold this system to account to shine a light into its darkest corner."
"So I want to be crystal clear in front of the British people today, we will leave no stone unturned," he added.
In response to a question about a public inquiry, Starmer said that there is a need for one to answer "all the questions" and to ensure that no stone is unturned.
"I also think we need an inquiry, because we are dealing with a new cohort, a different threat, this individualized extreme violence, and we have to have the laws and framework in place to deal with it."
