Sir Keir Starmer has said there's a new terror threat facing the UK - from "loners, misfits and young men in their bedroom" who carry out extreme violence and are fixated on it "seemingly for its own sake". The prime minister made his announcement the day after Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty to the murder of three young girls in Southport last summer. A public inquiry into the failings that allowed the crime to take place is also under way.
After his guilty plea, it emerged Rudakubana was referred to the Prevent programme, a government-led agency set up to stop the spread of terrorism in the UK, three times in the 17 months before the attack, but a judgement was made that he did not require intervention.
New security threats on the rise. Data from the Prevent programme suggests that this trend isn't new. Prevent categorises the people who are referred to it by their belief system, for example Islamists, the far-right, incels, or people inspired by school massacres. There are also a handful of categories of people with either no clear ideology, or whose personal ideology takes on sometimes conflicting parts of different ideologies.
More people are already categorised as "vulnerable [to radicalisation], but with no ideology or counter-terror risk", than any other category, including those with far-right or Islamist views. They were 36% of all referrals in 2023/24, up from 25% in 2019/20.
