Last July, Axel Rudakubana, the teenager who killed three children—Elsie Dot Stankom, Alice Da Silva Aguiar, and Bebe King—in a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, will be sentenced to at least 52 years in prison. Rudakubana had a long-standing obsession with violence, killing, and genocide, but prosecutors said there was no evidence that he subscribed to any particular political or religious ideology.
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02-13, 2025He admitted to terrorism offenses for downloading al-Qaeda training manuals. However, police or prosecutors did not treat the knife attack as an act of terrorism, and the judge emphasized that he "must accept" there was no evidence of a terrorist motive. He added, though, that Rudakubana's culpability was "equivalent to a terrorist incident, whatever its purpose."
Following Rudakubana's guilty plea earlier this week, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, declared that "terrorism has changed" and that the UK is facing "new threats." Sir Keir stated that we are now facing extreme violence from "lone wolves, oddballs, young people in bedrooms, who get all sorts of material online, wanting to be famous." He noted that the main threat in the past was from organized groups like al-Qaeda, but now we also face extreme violence from "lone wolves, oddballs, young people in bedrooms, who get all sorts of material online, wanting to be famous." They are sometimes inspired by traditional terrorist groups, but seem to be driven by the pursuit of extreme violence itself.
However, the situation described by the Prime Minister has been happening for years. "This is not a new threat," said Barnaby Jameson KC, who has prosecuted terrorism cases for many years. "Over the past decade, we have seen a large number of terrorism cases involving young men self-radicalizing in isolation online." What is truly new is that the Prime Minister has now said that this must be addressed urgently. The question now is how he will do this, and if this has been going on for years, why is action only being taken now?
Currently, the police, courts, and MI5 operate under the definition in the Terrorism Act 2000. This act defines terrorism as the use or threat of violence designed to influence a government, international governmental organization, or intimidate the public or a section of the public, for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial, or ideological cause. In short, for an attack to be considered terrorism, authorities must conclude that it was for a cause. But a range of terrorism offenses can—and do—get used to charge and disrupt those not defined by prosecutors as having a terrorist motive. On the other hand, some cases that some believe should be classified as terrorism are not actually classified as such.
Southport attacker Axel Rudakubana: The judge emphasized that he "must accept" there was no evidence of a terrorist motive in this case. Recent cases show how flexible the counter-terrorism system can be when faced with cases that do not fit a main ideology, suggesting that these issues are not as new as the Prime Minister suggests. Counter-terrorism police, with a specific focus on preventing violence, have investigated plots that were not defined as terrorism, including two teenagers sentenced in 2018 for planning a school massacre in North Yorkshire. In the same year, another investigation prevented a massacre in Cumbria. The "lone wolf" responsible was convicted of possessing terrorist manuals, but prosecutors said his motivation was "not terrorism," but related to hatred and revenge.
In 2021, a 16-year-old from Birmingham admitted to three terrorism offenses for possessing gun and bomb manuals. He had a general fascination with terrorism, violence, and so-called "incels." From the age of 11, he had consistently posted on a forum about the Columbine massacre. The prosecution's view was that he did not hold any fixed ideology. On the other hand, in a 2018 vehicle attack in Westminster, a man drove into cyclists and police outside parliament, and although there was no evidence of an extremist motive, the attack was prosecuted and sentenced for terrorism-related offenses due to the act and location, implying the attacker must have acted for a terrorist purpose. This case shows that a motive does not need to be explicit for a case to be considered terrorism.
However, a notorious double murder inspired by an extremist ideology—the 2020 stabbings of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman in a London park—was not defined as terrorism, even though the killer clearly acted out of a belief in Satanism and the occult. Whether an incident is declared as terrorism is decided by the police, specifically the National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism. In the past, this has happened quickly in notorious cases, including after the Manchester Arena bombing and the Westminster Bridge attack. Both of these were carried out by known extremists. One reason why the police may now take longer to make a declaration—even in cases that might be classified as terrorism—is the taxi explosion outside Liverpool Women's Hospital in 2021, which was initially declared a terrorist incident.
However, after a lengthy investigation, detectives eventually concluded that there was no evidence that the Liverpool bomber held any form of extremist views, and his exact motivation remains unclear, but was likely due to anger at the British government for repeatedly denying him asylum, and exacerbated by his own mental health issues. Despite such examples, the central focus of MI5 and the police remains on legally defined terrorism, rather than the wider group of people who pose a general risk of violence. If the government now asks for more time to be spent on this wider group, MI5 and the police will likely ask for more resources.
MI5 currently operates under the definition in the Terrorism Act 2000. Both are currently spending increasing amounts of time investigating state-sponsored espionage in the UK, particularly from Russia, Iran, and China, meaning they have less time for terrorism investigations. Within those investigations, detectives focusing on the far-right are spending more time dealing with young people engaged in a range of harmful activities, including sex offenses. Certain online spaces have seen a fusion of the occult, Satanism, misogyny, and a general extreme violent misanthropy, creating toxic new groups that then filter back into the real world. Some participants are often mentally vulnerable, which adds an extra sensitivity to interventions, whether these involve criminal investigations or not.
Some neo-Nazi groups created online by teenagers and young people have been proscribed as terrorist organizations, joining a list that includes Hamas and the IRA. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the main threat came from complex plots planned by groups like al-Qaeda, such as plans to blow up transatlantic planes using bombs disguised as drinks. This era saw the creation of the main terrorism laws now in use, which define a range of offenses—including preparing terrorist acts and possessing terrorist instructions—which we see used in court to disrupt and stop people from carrying out violence. Large long-term plots involving multiple people, like those in the 1990s and early 2000s, offered a range of opportunities for MI5, GCHQ (pictured), and the police to gather intelligence and take action.
But with the emergence of Islamic State (IS) over a decade ago, the threat shifted from plots directed by organizations to acts of violence by individuals who were inspired by online propaganda and instructions from groups like IS, but may have no direct links to them. Over the past decade, there have been a number of lone-wolf plots and attacks, including people using knives and vehicles as weapons, whose plans are harder to detect due to the relatively low level of preparation involved. Far-right violence has become a major issue, which largely follows the same pattern: lone-wolf plots and attacks, often by very young people, who are often inspired by material obtained online. Counter-terrorism police have been expressing their concern about this group for years. (Indeed, they are a group because the authorities have defined them as such.)
The number of referrals to Prevent, the government-led counter-extremism program, illustrates this. In the year to March 2020, 51% of those referred were individuals who were “ideologically mixed, unstable, or unclear,” and almost half of those were found to have no concerns after an initial assessment. The way this group is categorized has since changed, with new categories for school massacre radicalization and misogynistic incel ideology, which makes direct comparisons over the years difficult. However, the government's own 2023/2024 data shows that the largest single group referred to Prevent—36%, or 2,489 people—were defined as individuals who were vulnerable but had no ideological or counter-terrorism risk, with 19% categorized as far-right, 13% as Islamist radicalization, and 2% related to school massacre concerns.
Of these thousands of referrals to Prevent, 7% are taken up by multi-agency panels as requiring intervention. But the data for interventions shows how the largest group of initial referrals—those with a general interest in violence but no clear ideology—are gradually filtered out of the program. Of the cases that do involve intervention, 45% are related to far-right radicalization, 23% to Islamist radicalization, 18% to individuals with “conflicted concerns,” and 4% to school massacre concerns. The Southport attacker himself had been referred to Prevent three times by "educational establishments" over concerns about his interest in violence and extremism, but each time officials assessed that he did not meet the threshold for intervention—assessments which an official review found to be flawed in retrospect.
When you get to the actual investigations by MI5, the UK’s main counter-terrorism agency, the data shifts again, with its director-general Ken McCallum stating last year that 75% are related to Islamist extremism and 25% to the far-right. However, he conceded that “simple labels like ‘Islamist terrorism’ or ‘the far-right’ don’t fully reflect the dizzying array of beliefs and ideologies we’re seeing,” and that MI5 is encountering more people who access “teaching materials from both the far-right and Islamist extremism, as well as other online hate, conspiracy theories, and disinformation.” MI5 director-general Ken McCallum stated that labels like "Islamist terrorism" or "the far-right" do not fully reflect the range of beliefs and ideologies. This data suggests that there is a large group of people—about whom there are genuine concerns—who are not making it into the Prevent program or being investigated by MI5 or counter-terrorism police.
The Prime Minister said this week that these people may be “harder to detect,” adding that we “cannot shrug our shoulders and accept this.” But it is not yet clear what his government will do about it. The government could consider widening the definition of terrorism, or creating new offenses to deal with violent threats from non-terrorist offenders. It could also change the way violent threats from non-terrorist suspects are monitored and managed. Neil Basu, the former head of counter-terrorism at the Metropolitan Police, said this week that there is now a need for a “prevent program for non-terrorists,” which will require “a considerable amount of money” if we want to be safe. The government has appointed Lord Anderson KC, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, to review the Prevent program, despite a review commissioned by the previous government two years ago which was highly critical of the program.
Jonathan Hall KC, the current independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has been asked by the government to consider whether the definition needs to be changed. He said in an interview with the BBC: “There seem to be three reasons for expanding the definition of terrorism. If the definition is changed to take into account the number of victims, would serial killers like Lucy Letby be included?” Jonathan Hall KC asked. “It feels like only terrorism captures the horror of an attack like the one Rudakubana carried out; because doing so brings in counter-terrorism powers; and because terrorism law focuses on precursor offenses and preventing attacks. However, to change the definition, you need to work out which acts of violence are included and which are excluded. If the need to prove a political, religious, racial, or ideological cause is removed, then is the measure methodology, or the number of victims, or a desire for fame or to create a terror effect? Would serial killers like Lucy Letby be included?”
Regarding the question of which resources to use to deal with the threat, he argued that “we have to ask who is responsible for the risk posed by people like Rudakubana. This is about risk management and public protection by law enforcement, not welfare interventions. We can learn from how we manage terrorist subjects of concern through all available mechanisms, such as non-terrorist prosecutions or the use of civil orders.” With the sentencing of the Southport attacker, the focus will now be on what steps the government will take next to address the issues raised by the Prime Minister.
