17/05/2025
The Government through the Home Office, has rejected an application made by the Safer Schools campaign sent directly to the Prime Minister Keir Starmer, to ensure that additions were made to the terms of reference of the Southport Inquiry. While the selection of Core participants is a matter for the Chair, the terms of reference are determined by the Government, who set out the legal parameters for who and what is relevant to the inquiry.
The evidence shows that since 2017, a consistent and deliberate failure of MPs to investigate failings within safeguarding systems in relation to bullying and violence in schools, including the use of weapons and knives, played a significant role in Axel Rudakubana’s descent into violence. The evidence shows that had MPs not ignored those failings, Southport almost certainly would not have happened.
The Safer Schools application sought to ensure that those specific failings could not be overlooked, so that tragedy would not be repeated and importantly that any MPs that were found to have neglected their duties, could be publicly held to account through the inquiry and through subsequent criminal investigations if necessary.
The Government and the Prime Minister did not dispute the facts highlighted above but the request to add to the terms of reference was rejected, negating any guarantees that these matters would have had to have been included in the inquiry. The Government had already set terms of reference for the Chair, that clearly allow these specific failures of MPs to be overlooked and therefore MPs to avoid any blame.
The Government have made this decision, despite being informed and provided with evidence to show that the key to understanding what went wrong in the case of Axel Rudakubana and ensuring that another tragedy like Southport can never happen again, is to ensure questions in relation to the failures highlighted above are crucial to the whole inquiry.
The end result is an inquiry that will be totally unfit for purpose that will do very little to protect children and prevent future atrocities, while doing everything to protect Government and MPs.