Prevent is not solely to blame for Southport failings

The assailant in the Southport massacre has pleaded guilty to the murders of three children in the town last year. Keir Starmer has leapt with unusual speed to authorise a public inquiry into what drove Axel Rudakubana into his frenzy of killing and if it could have been prevented. We now know that the state’s protective agencies crossed Rudakubana multiple times; he was referred three times to the government’s Prevent strategy, which is supposed to spot and stop tomorrow’s terrorists before hateful thought turns into lethal action.

The Prevent strategy has been under huge scrutiny recently following the publication of a review of its effectiveness by the writer Sir William Shawcross. My organisation, the Counter Extremism Project, agreed with the key findings of his 2023 report. In essence, Prevent had become a safeguarding crèche for unhappy teenagers who were unlikely ever to take up arms.