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Quassim Cassam

February 5th, 2025

The Southport murders don’t justify changing the definition of terrorism

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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Quassim Cassam

February 5th, 2025

The Southport murders don’t justify changing the definition of terrorism

0 comments | 3 shares

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Keir Starmer has ordered a review of the definition of terrorism in response to the Southport murders. But Quassim Cassam argues that the current definition is fit for purpose, and changing it could lead to unintended consequences. 


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The brutal murders of three young children in Southport last year by Axel Rudakubana raises questions about the UK’s definition of terrorism. Although Rudakubana was charged with possession of a document for terrorist purposes, his three murders and ten attempted murders were not charged as acts of terrorism. Last week, the 18-year-old was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years.

The UK’s Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism as the use or threat of action of various types – including serious violence – that meets two conditions, a design condition and a purpose condition. The use or threat of action has to be designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public and it is for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial, or ideological cause. Regardless of whether Rudakubana met the design condition, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) judged that he lacked a political, racial, religious, or political motive and therefore did not meet the purpose condition.

The Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, commented that he understood why people wonder what the word “terrorism” means if the Southport murders are not terrorism.

The case for changing the definition of terrorism

The Southport murders were exceptional for their brutality. According to a CPS spokesperson, Rudakubana “displayed unrelenting savagery as he carried out a meticulously planned rampage of murder and violence. His purpose was to kill and he targeted the youngest, most vulnerable, no doubt in order to spread the greatest level of fear and outrage, which he did”. The Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, who has ordered a review of the definition of terrorism, commented that he understood why people wonder what the word “terrorism” means if the Southport murders are not terrorism. His suggestion seemed to be that the Southport murders are false negatives for the existing legal definition of terrorism – genuine acts of terrorism that are not captured by that definition.

The dangers of changing the definition of terrorism

While outrage about the Southport murders is understandable, expanding the definition of terrorism is not necessarily the answer. One issue is the danger that an expanded definition of terrorism will generate a slew of false positives – actions that should not be so classified coming out as acts of terrorism according to the expanded definition. A wider definition would also have significant resource implications. A larger pool of potential terrorists means more work for counter-terrorism police.

It is possible to intend to terrorise people without being a terrorist and, indeed, for acts of terrorism not to terrorise anyone.

Consider some of the features of the Southport murders highlighted by the Prime Minister: the extreme nature of Rudakubana’s violence, his fixation on extreme violence for its own sake, and the clear intention to terrorise. Yet serial killers like Fred West and Jeffrey Dahmer were guilty of extreme acts of terrorising violence but were still not terrorists by most people’s lights. What they lacked was precisely the thing that Rudakubana lacked: a political, religious, racial, or ideological motive.

Extreme violence doesn’t always equate to terrorism

The notion of extreme violence for its own sake reminds one of the character of Alex in the Anthony Burgess novella A Clockwork Orange. Like some modern-day football hooligans, Alex and his fellow delinquents engage in what they call “ultraviolence” for no other purpose than to satisfy their thirst for violence, the more extreme the better. Yet they were hooligans, not terrorists, and a sensible definition of terrorism should respect this distinction. It is possible to intend to terrorise people without being a terrorist and, indeed, for acts of terrorism not to terrorise anyone. As noted by the terrorism scholar Richard English, terrorising people is not central to what terrorists intend to do.

If one is determined to classify the Southport murders as terrorism, there is another option: to argue that they already fall – at least potentially – within the scope of the Terrorism Act. To be sure, Rudakubana lacked a standard ideological or religious motive or purpose, but there are also non-standard ideologies and religions. Imagine someone who, like the Joker in Batman, has a passion for evil or believes that extreme violence has a cleansing force and seeks to cleanse humanity through acts of extreme violence. It would not be absurd to describe such a person as acting for the purpose of advancing an ideological or religious cause.

No such thing as a perfect definition

Regardless of whether Rudakubana’s actions in Southport can be made to look like terrorism, one might wonder why it matters. What do we gain by calling the Southport murders terrorism? The Prime Minister implied that this would be a way to register their awfulness, but the 52-year minimum term already does that. The detective who investigated the Southport murders is reported as having argued that treating them as terrorism would have given him and his colleagues more time to investigate but this consideration needs to be weighed against the extra burdens on police that might result from an expanded definition of terrorism.

The focus should always be to find a good enough rather than perfect definition: one that serves the practical purposes for which it is intended and doesn’t generate counterexamples – false positive or false negatives – that have adverse practical consequences.

Philosophers have often pointed out that watertight definitions even of simple concepts are hard to come by. Even the standard definition of “bachelor” as an unmarried man generates counterexamples: most of us would be reluctant to describe a man who has lived with the same woman for decades as a bachelor, even given the additional information that the couple never married. The focus should always be to find a good enough rather than perfect definition: one that serves the practical purposes for which it is intended and doesn’t generate counterexamples – false positive or false negatives – that have adverse practical consequences.

Ultraviolence is not a social problem to which the Terrorism Act can or should be the solution.

To view the task of defining terrorism as a pragmatic rather than a purely intellectual exercise is to see the merits of the definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2000. It has proved fit for purpose and not caused serious problems. It is not a serious problem if it does not justify the description of the Southport murders as terrorism, and it would be unwise to amend the legal definition of terrorism in response to these murders. Ultraviolence is not a social problem to which the Terrorism Act can or should be the solution.


All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.


Image credit: The Emperor of Byzantium in Wikimedia Commons


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About the author

Quassim Cassam

Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Warwick, Fellow of the British Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. His most recent book is Extremism: A Philosophical Analysis.

Posted In: Government | Political Theory