Keir Starmer speech today: What did Prime Minister say on Southport attack inquiry - as PM accused of 'cover-up' over murders
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The Prime Minister addressed the Southport attack inquiry this morning, beginning his speech by saying there must be “justice” and it “must be a line in the sand for Britain”. The murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29 last year were followed by riots amid a swirl of misinformation that spread online as the authorities refused to name the suspect – who was 17 at the time – or discuss his background.
Keir Starmer already announced that there will be a public inquiry into the Southport attack. A public inquiry will be held into why the authorities failed in what Sir Keir described as their “ultimate duty” to protect three young girls stabbed to death by Axel Rudakubana as it emerged the killer had been referred three times to the Prevent anti-terrorism programme.
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Hide AdNigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said the Government and the police had behaved “abominably”, and suggested the riots that followed the murders last July might not have happened if the public had been told the truth earlier. He said: “There has been a gigantic cover-up from day one.”


Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty on Monday (20 January) to three murders and 10 attempted murders as well as possessing al-Qaeda literature and producing the poison ricin. However, the public has always been told that the murders were not terror-related. Robert Jenrick, Shadow Justice Secretary, said Ms Cooper and Sir Keir needed to start by telling the public what they and the police knew about Rudakubana’s background, while the public was repeatedly being told the murders were not linked to terrorism.
This morning, the Prime Minister said the incident illustrates failure by state that “leaps off the page”. He said: “I will not let any institution of the state deflect from their failure – failure which in this case, frankly, leaps off the page. For example, the perpetrator was referred to the Prevent programme on three separate occasions, in 2019 once, and in 2021 twice.
“Yet on each of these occasions, a judgment was made that he did not meet the threshold for intervention – a judgment that was clearly wrong and which failed those families, and I acknowledge that here today.” Sir Keir defended the approach to the sharing of information about the killer after the attack as he said the “the law of this country forbade me or anyone else from disclosing details sooner”.
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Hide Ad“Nonetheless, it is now time for those questions”. He addressed whether the incident was a terror threat. He said it shows how “Britain faces a new threat” and “terrorism has changed”. He said the government will change the law if necessary to ensure the state can identify violent individuals who may be planning attacks on their own.
He also said there will be a review of the whole counter-extremist system to ensure it is fit for purpose. Starmer said: “In the past the predominant threat was highly organized groups with clear political intent, groups like al-Qaida. 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 on that extreme violence, seemingly for its own sake.” Starmer added that nothing “will be off the table with this inquiry” and the government will “leave no stone unturned”.
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