Why won’t Keir Starmer use the word ‘terrorist’?

Why does Keir Starmer find it so hard to use the word ‘terrorist’ when talking about a man who buys ricin and a machete online, reads up about killing people in an al Qaeda training manual – and then goes out and stabs to death three young girls attending a dance class? When asked this week whether he regarded the crimes committed by Axel Rudakubana as a terrorist act, the Prime Minister couldn’t quite bring himself to do so, instead referring to it as an act of ‘extreme violence clearly intended to terrorise’.

Starmer has obfuscated over the Southport killings since they occurred in July. Like the police, he immediately declined to treat the attack as terrorism. He said this week that he did not disclose the fact Rudakubana had been referred to the anti-extremism programme Prevent three times before the murders because he was ‘obeying the law of the land’. He insisted that had he, or the police, shared such information with the public at the time then it could have led to a future trial collapsing. Yet as the Conservative MP Nick Timothy has pointed out, this claim makes no sense. Details about the 18-year-old’s history and his possession of terrorist materials were disclosed in October, when he was charged with the possession of ricin. It could not have prejudiced a trial to have released such information in July.

Withholding such details only served to fuel rumours. Social media was rife with allegations – some untrue, such as the claim that the attacker was an asylum seeker. However, some were correct: yes, Rudakubana had a long history of extremism. It is galling to learn he had been referred multiple times to Prevent, yet on each occasion had been assessed as not reaching the threshold at which further action was required.