Britain is facing a new and dangerous form of extremism, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday, warning that loners and misfits were being radicalized by “a tidal wave of violence freely available online”.
In a speech at Downing Street, Mr Starmer said that unlike the terrorist threat posed by organized groups like Al-Qaeda, where a clear ideology could be identified, some young people were obsessed with extreme violence itself. He compared the brutal killing of three girls during a dance class last July in Southport, England, to some school shootings seen in the United States.
On Monday, Axel Rudakubana, 18, admitted murdering three girls in the coastal town of Southport and attempting to kill 10 others. Last summer’s attack sparked riots in several cities in England and Northern Ireland.
Serena Kennedy, head of Merseyside Police, the force which covers Southport, said in a statement on Monday that Mr Rudakubana had “an unhealthy obsession with extreme violence”, as evidenced by a wealth of documents, images, videos and texts on violence, conflict and genocide that he had seen on his digital devices.
“We know that he had searched for many documents online that show this obsession,” she said, adding: “Of all these documents, no ideology was discovered, and that is why this does not was not treated as terrorism.”
