Southport attacker’s lack of coherent ideology meant the counter-terrorism scheme did not see him as potential security risk, exposing the urgent need for reform

Seven years before Axel Rudakubana launched the Southport attack, a new category was quietly added into the UK’s Prevent counter-terrorism scheme. Labelled “mixed, unstable or unclear ideology”, it aimed to cover a growing number of cases where people had been flagged as a potential security threat but did not fit into existing boxes, such as Islamist or far-right extremism.

“In cases such as these, the individual may not have a coherent or single ideology, but may still pose a terrorism risk,” said an official ­bulletin announcing the change in 2017, warning of a significant increase in these kinds of cases. By the time a 13-year-old Rudakubana was flagged to Prevent in November 2019, more than half of all referrals to the scheme were put in the “mixed, unstable or unclear ideology” bracket, and the proportion was even greater for cases involving children.