PM statement on the Southport public inquiry: 21 January 2025
Source: gov.uk (2025-01-21)

Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivered a statement on the Southport public inquiry today.

The senseless, barbaric murder of three young girls in Southport is a devastating moment in our history.

No words come anywhere close to expressing the brutality and horror in this case.

Every parent in Britain will have had the same thought.

It could have been anywhere. It could have been our children.

But it was Southport.

It was Bebe. Six years old.

Elsie. Seven.

Alice. Nine.

Back in August I said there would be a time for questions, but that first, justice had to be done.

And that above all, we must not interfere with the work of the police, the prosecutors, and the delivery of that justice.

Well yesterday, thankfully, a measure of justice was done.

But it won’t bring those girls back to their families.

It won’t remove the trauma from the lives of those who were injured.

Their lives will never be the same.

So, before I turn to the questions that must now be answered for the families and the nation, I first want to recognise their unimaginable grief. Because I know the whole country grieves for them.

The tragedy of the Southport killings must be a line in the sand for Britain.

We must make sure the names of those three young girls are not associated with the vile perpetrator, but instead with a fundamental change in how Britain protects its citizens and its children.

In pursuit of that, we must of course ask and answer difficult questions.

Questions that should be far-reaching, unburdened by cultural or institutional sensitivities and driven only by the pursuit of justice.

That is what we owe the families.

The responsibility for this barbaric act lies – as it always does – with the vile individual who carried it out. But that is no comfort. And more importantly, it is no excuse.

And so, as part of the inquiry launched by the Home Secretary yesterday, 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 judgement was made that he did not meet the threshold for intervention.

A judgement that was clearly wrong. And which failed those families. I acknowledge that here today.

Throughout this case, to this point, we have only been focused on justice.

If this trial had collapsed because I or anyone else had revealed crucial details while the police were investigating while the case was being built, while we were awaiting a verdict, then the vile individual who committed these crimes would have walked away a free man.

The prospect of justice destroyed for the victims and their families.

I would never do that. And nobody would ever forgive me if I had.

That is why the law of this country forbade me or anyone else from disclosing details sooner.

Nonetheless, it is now time for those questions.

And the first of those is whether this was a terrorist attack.

The blunt truth here is that this case is a sign.

Britain now faces a new threat. Terrorism has changed.

In the past, the predominant threat was highly organised groups with clear political intent. Groups like Al-Qaeda.

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.

Now, it may well be that people like this are harder to spot. But we can’t shrug our shoulders and accept that.

We can’t have a national security system that fails to tackle people who are a danger to our values, our security, our children.

We have to be ready to face every threat.

When I look at the details of this case. The extreme nature of the violence. The meticulous plan to attack young children in a place of joy and safety. Violence clearly intended to terrorise. Then I understand why people wonder what the word ‘terrorism’ means.

And so, if the law needs to change to recognise this new and dangerous threat, then we will change it – and quickly.

And we will also review our entire counter-extremist system to make sure we have what we need to defeat it.

Now, that work is already underway.

I have tasked Sir David Anderson KC, the new Independent Prevent Commissioner, to hold this system to account.

To shine a light into its darkest corners, so the British people can have confidence that action will follow words.

But I have to say, to face up to this new threat there are also bigger questions.

Questions such as how we protect our children from the tidal wave of violence freely available online.

Because you can’t tell me that the material this individual viewed before committing these murders should be accessible on mainstream social media platforms.

That with just a few clicks, people can watch video after horrific video. Videos that in some cases are never taken down.

No – that cannot be right.

But it’s not just the nightmares of the online world.

Because when you wake from a nightmare, the first thing you do is reassure yourself with reality.

But for far too many people, the state of our society no longer does that.

People will say this is all because of immigration, or all because of funding cuts.

But in truth, neither tells us anything like the full story or explains this case properly.

No – this goes deeper.

A growing sense that the rights and responsibilities that we owe to one another. The set of unwritten rules that hold a nation together, have, in recent years, been ripped apart.

Children who have stopped going to school since the pandemic.

Young people who have opted out of work or education.

More and more people retreating into parallel lives, whether through failures of integration or just a country slowly turning away from itself.

Wounds that politics, for all that it may have contributed, must try to heal.

Thirdly, there are also questions about the accountability of the Whitehall and Westminster system.

A system that is far too often driven by circling the institutional wagons.

That does not react until justice is either hard-won, by campaigners or until appalling tragedies like this finally spur a degree of action.

Time and again we see this pattern and people are right to be angry about it.

I am angry about it.

Southport must be a line in the sand.

Nothing will be off the table in this inquiry – nothing.

And most importantly, it will lead to change.

I know people will be watching right now and they will be saying we’ve heard all this before.

The promises, the sorrow, the inquiry that comes and goes.

An inability to deliver change that, frankly, has become the oxygen of wider conspiracy.

We have seen that throughout this case.

A suggestion that there has been a ‘cover-up’.

I want to put on record that yesterday’s guilty verdict only happened because hundreds, if not thousands, of dedicated public servants worked towards it.

Many of whom endured absolutely harrowing circumstances, particularly in the police and at the Crown Prosecution Service.

That is their job, they are brilliant at it, and we should never forget their service to our country. Law and order depend on them.

Yet I am also under no illusions that until the wider state shows the country it can change not just what it delivers for people, but also its culture, then this atmosphere of mistrust will remain.

So I want to be crystal clear, in front of the British people today - we will leave no stone unturned.

I was the prosecutor who first spotted failures in grooming cases at my institution the CPS fourteen years ago.

And I was the prosecutor who first did something about it, by bringing the rape gangs in Rochdale to justice.

And so, my approach as Prime Minister will be no different.

If any shortcomings are now holding back the ability of this country to keep its citizens and its children safe, I will find them and I will root them out.

Because when it comes to justice, the failure to be transparent is not only disgraceful on its own terms.

It is also the enemy of strong communities, it spreads suspicion more widely, and allows division to win.

I remember when this happened, in those dark days of the summer.

And I remember that, like now, the whole country grieved for Southport.

But I also remember how it was profoundly moved by their example.

Because even as that community suffered an unimaginable evil, even as they then had to endure mindless violence, bricks and bottles thrown at their community, their businesses, their mosque.

Police officers attacked, including those who were on the scene, responding to this vile murder.

Even despite all of that, they chose to come together.

They chose to pick up the pieces of their lives.

They chose to rebuild. Brick by brick. Side by side.

Strangers no longer strangers. A community.

This country has no shortage of empathy for the people of Southport, I know that.

But in the face of such darkness and tragedy what we really should do is follow their example.

That is what we need to face this new threat.

But also, something more.

Because national renewal isn’t just about public services or the economy.

It’s about turning us back towards ourselves.

Giving people confidence in a shared future so people can once again see the strength and power in themselves and in this nation.

But that can only begin, today by holding up the mirror and facing what we see.

So wherever this inquiry goes, we will follow it.

No matter the boats it will rock, no matter the vested interests it will threaten.

We won’t hide.

But then, most importantly of all, we will act.

Because this time it will be different.

Southport will be a line in the sand.

We will honour those three little girls and deliver, not just justice but the change that the people and families of Southport deserve.