Violent videos which Southport killer Axel Rudakubana watched are still online after the Government asked social media companies for them to be removed, Yvette Cooper has said.

The Home Secretary wrote to Elon Musk’s X, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, TikTok, Google and YouTube in late January calling on them to “urgently review” material accessed by Rudakubana.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, Ms Cooper claimed material remains online despite her calls for it to be removed.

She told the BBC: “There has been some further contact with some of the social media companies, but our understanding is that many of those materials… that material is still available online.

“I think, frankly, that is disgraceful, because I think they have a moral responsibility to act.”

Under the UK’s Online Safety Act, from March platforms will be required to remove illegal content, including violent material.

Ms Cooper said the Government is willing to go further if social media giants do not comply.

She said: “We need to bring in the requirements to make sure we’ve got those legal powers in place and we will implement that.

“We are being clear that we are prepared to go further if the Online Safety Act measures are not working as effectively as we need them to do.”

Ms Cooper previously warned failing to remove the videos from social media could lead to further attacks like that carried out by Rudakubana.

The 18-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum term of 52 years after pleading guilty to murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a dance class in Southport last July.

He also admitted attempting to murder eight other children and two adults, possession of a knife, production of a biological toxin, ricin, and possessing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.

Before leaving home, he had searched online for “Mar Mari Emmanuel stabbing” – the knife attack on a bishop in Sydney, Australia, in April last year.

The graphic video was removed in Australia but is still available to view in the UK, Ms Cooper and Science Secretary Peter Kyle said in a letter to the tech bosses.

Rudakubana also had a PDF file entitled Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual, which led to him facing the charge under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

The ministers warned the killer had been able to easily obtain this document online and it “continues to remain available”.

The Home Secretary has ordered a “thorough review” of the Southport killer’s referrals to the Prevent anti-terror programme “to identify what changes are needed to make sure serious cases are not missed”.

Yvette Cooper told MPs on Tuesday she had appointed Lord David Anderson KC as interim Prevent commissioner because “independent oversight” of the programme was needed.

A litany of concerns have been raised over the years about how the deradicalisation programme works after several terror attacks were carried out by extremists who had been referred to Prevent.

Ms Cooper’s comments come nearly two years after then-home secretary Suella Braverman said the scheme – which aims to stop people turning to terrorism – needed “major reform” and should focus on security and “not political correctness”.

Axel Rudakubana was reported to Prevent three times between 2019 and 2021 but the Home Office established each referral “should not have been closed”, the Home Secretary said as she branded him responsible for “one of the most barbaric crimes in our country’s history”.

Speaking in the Commons, Ms Cooper said Lord Anderson will start work “immediately”, adding: “His first task will be to conduct a thorough review of the Prevent history in this case to identify what changes are needed to make sure serious cases are not missed, particularly when there is mixed and unclear ideology.”

Meanwhile, the Home Office will look at the thresholds used for Prevent referrals to see how violent behaviour can be “urgently” addressed.

It comes after officials in the department spent the summer investigating Rudakubana’s Prevent referrals and found, “given his age and complex needs”, they should not have been closed.

Ms Cooper said the referrals took place “between three and four years before the Southport attack, including following evidence that he was expressing interest in school shootings, in the London Bridge attack, the IRA, MI5 and the Middle East”, adding that on each occasion Rudakubana’s case was assessed by counter-terror police but not then sent for specialist support.

The findings are due to be published after he is sentenced.

The review “concludes that too much weight was placed on the absence of ideology without considering the vulnerabilities to radicalisation or taking account of whether he was obsessed with massacre or extreme violence, and the cumulative significance of those three repeat referrals was not properly considered”, Ms Cooper told MPs.

The Home Secretary also set out more detail on the public inquiry into the July atrocity which triggered riots around the country.

Highlighting how several public bodies had contact with Rudakubana but “completely failed to identify the terrible danger that he posed”, she said it was “just unbearable to think that something more could and should have been done” as she asked how he fell through so many “gaps”.

“There are grave questions about how this network of agencies failed to identify and act on the risks. There were so many signs of how dangerous he had become, yet the action against him was far too weak. So, families need the truth about why the system failed to tackle his violence for so many years,” Ms Cooper told the Commons.

The public inquiry will begin work “initially on a non-statutory basis, so that it can move quickly into action”, she said, but stressed statutory powers – which would mean witnesses could be ordered to attend and give evidence – would be added later “as required”.

Earlier, the Prime Minister said of the inquiry: “I will not let any institution of the state deflect from their failure.”

Speaking from Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer said he was under “no illusions that until the wider state shows the country it can change not just what it delivers for people, but also its culture, then this atmosphere of mistrust will remain”, adding: “So I want to be crystal clear, in front of the British people today – we will leave no stone unturned.”

Describing himself as the “prosecutor who first spotted failures in grooming cases” at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) 14 years ago and the prosecutor who “first did something about it, by bringing the rape gangs in Rochdale to justice”, he insisted his approach as Prime Minister will be “no different”.

“If any shortcomings are now holding back the ability of this country to keep its citizens and its children safe, I will find them and I will root them out,” he said.

In 2023, Ms Braverman said Prevent needs to “better understand the threats we face and the ideology underpinning them” after a long-awaited report which had been ordered by former home secretary Priti Patel in 2019 made 34 recommendations for an overhaul of Prevent.

At the time Ms Braverman vowed to “swiftly implement all of the review’s recommendations” but in February last year – nearly 12 months since she made this promise – ex-Charity Commission chairman Sir William Shawcross, who led the assessment, claimed the public were being put at risk because his key recommendations had been “ignored” by ministers.

Homegrown terrorist Ali Harbi Ali, who murdered veteran MP Sir David Amess in 2021; Reading terror attacker Khairi Saadallah, who killed three men in a park, and Sudesh Amman, responsible for stabbings in Streatham, south London, both in 2020; Usman Khan, who murdered two people in the Fishmongers’ Hall attack in November 2019; and the 2017 Parsons Green Tube train attacker Iraqi asylum seeker Ahmed Hassan were all referred to Prevent.

The Home Secretary has said politicians will not be “cowed” following the fatal stabbing of MP Sir David Amess, which police believe may be linked to Islamist extremism.

Priti Patel visited the scene at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea on Saturday morning alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle to pay their respects to Sir David, less than 24 hours after he was killed at a constituency surgery.

Ms Patel said security measures were being put in place to protect MPs but vowed they will carry on serving the country unimpeded in the face of the attack, which the Metropolitan Police have declared was a terrorist incident.

Speaking at Southend Police Station, the Home Secretary said: “We will carry on, we live in an open society, a democracy. We cannot be cowed by any individual or any motivation… to stop us from functioning, to serve our elected democracy.”

Asked whether there could be a balance between the safety of MPs and the democratic process, she said: “It can be balanced, it can absolutely be balanced.”

Ms Patel said Sir David was “was killed doing a job that he loves, serving his own constituents as an elected democratic member and, of course, acts of this… are absolutely wrong, and we cannot let that get in the way of our functioning democracy.”

“So that is why there are measures under way right now – I convened meetings yesterday, I’ve been with the Speaker of the House, and with the police and our security services to make sure that all measures are being put in place for the security of MPs so that they can carry on with their duties as elected democratic members,” she added.

Sir David, 69, who had been an MP since 1983, was fatally injured while meeting constituents.

A 25-year-old man arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder is in custody at an Essex police station.

Official sources told the PA news agency the man is believed to be a British national with Somali heritage.

As part of the investigation, officers are also carrying out searches at two addresses in the London area, the Met said.

Scotland Yard said the country’s most senior counter-terror officer, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, has formally declared the incident as terrorism and said early investigations have revealed “a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism”.

Politicians put on a united front at the church on Saturday morning, with Mr Johnson and Sir Keir individually laying flowers outside the building.

But MPs have raised concerns over their safety at constituency surgeries following the attack, sparking a debate over whether they should continue in person.

Veteran Labour MP Harriet Harman said she will be writing to the Prime Minister asking him to back a Speaker’s Conference to review the safety of parliamentarians.

Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, who was hailed as a hero for his attempts to save the life of Pc Keith Palmer during the Westminster terror attack in 2017, said face-to-face meetings with MPs should be paused until a security review has been completed.

Investigators believe Sir David’s killer acted alone and are not seeking anyone else in connection with his death.

According to reports, the knifeman was waiting among a group of people to see Sir David at the church and launched the attack shortly after the MP arrived.

Local councillor John Lamb told the PA news agency he dashed to the church when he heard Sir David had been “stabbed multiple times”.

He said: “David was there holding his surgery at that Methodist church and this person had gone there to join the surgery and when he got the chance and he went in to be seen by David, then he drew a knife and stabbed him.”

By the time Mr Lamb arrived, police cordons were up and he could not get into the church.

He said: “We knew it must be very serious because the paramedics had been working on Sir David for over two-and-a-half hours and they hadn’t got him on the way to hospital. We knew it had to be extremely serious and that the worst scenario could occur – we were hoping it wouldn’t but it did. That was when we heard that he had died.”

The Conservative councillor said a worker from Sir David’s office who was in the surgery during the attack was “not in touch at the moment because it’s so distressing, she’s getting counselling at the moment”.

Mr Lamb previously told the Daily Mail that Sir David was with two female members of staff – one from his constituency office and one from his parliamentary office – when a man “literally got a knife out and just began stabbing him”.

Chief Constable of Essex Police Ben-Julian Harrington said Southend West MP Sir David was “simply dispensing his duties when his life was horrifically cut short”.

Tory veteran Sir David, who was described by Mr Johnson as “one of the kindest, nicest, most gentle people in politics” was married with five children.

The attack came five-and-a-half years after Labour MP Jo Cox was killed by a far-right extremist in her Batley and Spen constituency in West Yorkshire.

The UK’s terrorism threat level has been reduced from “severe” to “substantial” due to a significant reduction in the momentum of attacks in Europe.

Home Secretary Priti Patel told MPs the lowered threat level still meant an attack on the UK remained “likely” and the public should remain vigilant.

The threat level was raised to severe by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) in November following Islamist attacks in Austria and France.

But on Thursday last week the expert analysts reduced the level, Ms Patel told MPs on Monday.

“The decision to lower the threat level from severe to substantial is due to the significant reduction in the momentum of attacks in Europe since those seen between September and November 2020,” the Home Secretary said.

“However, the UK national threat level is kept under constant review and is subject to change at any time.

“Terrorism remains one of the most direct and immediate risks to our national security.

“Substantial continues to indicate a high level of threat; and an attack on the UK is still likely.

“The public should continue to remain vigilant and report any concerns to the police.”

The man nicknamed Jihadi Jack has said that he wants to return to Britain, but he thinks it unlikely he will be allowed back.

Jack Letts, 23, speaking from the Kurdish jail where he has been held for two years on suspicion of joining IS after he ran away to Syria in 2014, said he missed his mum, pasties, and Doctor Who.

He told ITV News: “I feel British, I am British.

“If the UK accepted me I would go back to the UK, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Born in Oxford, the Muslim convert also has a Canadian passport thanks to his father’s nationality, but admitted: “I don’t know if that will still be valid.”

He told the broadcaster that he had lived on “the Oxford Street of Raqqa”, and married an Iraqi woman who has given birth to the couple’s son.

Mr Letts, a former pupil of Cherwell School, also confessed that he was pleased when he first heard news of the Paris terror attacks in 2015, and blamed his reaction on his experiences of coalition airstrikes in Raqqa.

He said when asked about the Bataclan atrocities: “At the time, I thought it was a good thing.

“At the time we had this idea, living in Raqqa, getting bombed every five minutes by coalition jets. I’ve seen children burnt alive.

“You have this idea of ‘why shouldn’t it happen to them?'”

But he claimed he has since had a change of heart, and sympathy for the innocent people killed, as he “realised that they had nothing to do with it”.

The Home Office said: “In recent days the Home Secretary has clearly stated that his priority is the safety and security of Britain and the people who live here.

“In order to protect this country, he has the power to deprive someone of their British citizenship where it would not render them stateless.

“We do not comment on individual cases, but any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly.”

Mr Letts, who was a teenager when he fled to Syria, has not seen his parents in half a decade, and is missing some elements of his life in the UK.

He added: “I miss people mostly, I miss my mum. Five years I haven’t seen my mum, two years I haven’t spoken to my mum.

“I miss pasties. And Doctor Who.”

Mr Letts’ parents, John Letts and Sally Lane, from Chilswell Road, Oxford, are awaiting trial in the UK accused of sending money to their son.

They have denied three charges of funding terrorism.

This is not the first time Mr Letts has spoken to the British media since he fled his home.

In 2016, he told Channel 4 News that he missed Krispy Kreme doughnuts and kebabs, and had narrowly survived an airstrike with just a “scratch”.

And when asked if he was an IS fighter, he replied “Currently I’m not” before saying later in a statement that he opposes the militant group.

Mr Letts’ interview comes the day after the family of Islamic State bride Shamima Begum confirmed they would be challenging the Home Office’s decision to revoke the 19-year-old’s British citizenship.

Ms Begum was one of three schoolgirls to leave Bethnal Green to join the terror cult in 2015 and recently gave birth to a baby boy, her third child.

They said in a letter to the Home Secretary on Thursday: “We must, therefore, assist Shamima in challenging your decision to take away the one thing that is her only hope at rehabilitation, her British citizenship.”

Islamic State bride Shamima Begum, who fled to Syria aged 15, is not a Bangladeshi citizen and will be barred from entering the country, its foreign ministry has said.

The 19-year-old from London said she wanted to return to the UK with her newborn baby, with the end of the so-called caliphate in Syria within sight.

But Home Secretary Sajid Javid revoked her British citizenship in a move only permissible under international law if it does not leave the individual stateless.

There had been speculation that Ms Begum, who is of Bangladeshi heritage, may have citizenship there but its minister of state for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam denied this on Wednesday.

A statement tweeted by the minister said: “The Government of Bangladesh is deeply concerned that she has been erroneously identified as a holder of dual citizenship shared with Bangladesh alongside her birthplace, the United Kingdom.

“Bangladesh asserts that Ms Shamima Begum is not a Bangladeshi citizen.

She is a British citizen by birth and has never applied for dual nationality with Bangladesh.

“It may also be mentioned that she never visited Bangladesh in the past despite her parental lineage.

“So, there is no question of her being allowed to enter into Bangladesh.”

The statement added that Dhaka had only been made aware of the situation by the media.

Asked whether she had been left stateless by Britain, the Begum family’s lawyer Tasnime Akunjee said: “It’s certainly something we will be adding to the mix in terms of our appeal.”

He has said Ms Begum was born in the UK, has never had a Bangladeshi passport and is not a dual citizen.

Asked about the situation on ITV’s Peston, Mr Javid said: “I’m not aware of any Home Secretary in any party in any previous government that has taken a decision that would leave anyone stateless.

“I’m not going to talk about an individual, but I can be clear on the point that I would not take a decision and I believe none of my predecessors ever have taken a decision that at the point the decision is taken would leave that individual stateless.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “In recent days the Home Secretary has clearly stated that his priority is the safety and security of Britain and the people who live here.

“In order to protect this country, he has the power to deprive someone of their British citizenship where it would not render them stateless.

“We do not comment on individual cases, but any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly.”

She was one of three schoolgirls to leave Bethnal Green to join the terror cult in 2015 and resurfaced heavily pregnant at a Syrian refugee camp last week.

On Wednesday, she was shown a copy of the Home Office letter that announced her British citizenship would be stripped.

She told ITV News: “I don’t know what to say. I am not that shocked but I am a bit shocked.

“It’s a bit upsetting and frustrating. I feel like it’s a bit unjust on me and my son.”

She went on to say she may try for citizenship in the Netherlands, where her husband is from.

Meanwhile, Mr Javid suggested the action to prevent Ms Begum returning will have no impact on her baby son’s nationality.

While insisting he could not discuss individual cases, he told the

Commons: “Children should not suffer.

“So, if a parent does lose their British citizenship, it does not affect the rights of their child.”

He also delivered a staunch defence of the Government’s ability to use the citizenship powers to prevent the return of “dangerous individuals”.

He told MPs that the step was never taken lightly, adding: “But when someone turns their back on the fundamental values and supports terror, they don’t have an automatic right to return to the UK.

“We must put the safety and security of our country first and I will not hesitate to act to protect it.”

Ms Begum’s comments sparked intense debate about the UK’s responsibilities to those seeking to return from Syria.

The case took a dramatic turn on Tuesday when it emerged Mr Javid had opted to strip Ms Begum of her British citizenship.

The British Nationality Act 1981 provides the Home Secretary with the power to take such action if it is “conducive to the public good”.

A protracted legal battle over the move is now looming with international law forbidding nations from making people stateless.

Lord Carlile, former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said Ms Begum could challenge the decision, and described it as a “complex issue” that could take a while to resolve.

He told BBC Breakfast: “I suspect that the result is going to be that she will stay where she is for maybe two years at least.”

Figures for 2017 show that 104 people were deprived of their British citizenship, up from 14 in the previous year.

We have today, signed a letter with numerous organisations and individuals, asking the Home Secretary to provide the option of sanctuary and refuge to Asia Bibi, who was released after 8 years of false imprisonment in Pakistan.

Faith Matters has consistently highlighted the extremism of groups like Tehreek-e-Labaik and its leader, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who has inflamed tensions in Pakistan by rousing extremist mobs to attack the Government. Faith Matters also managed to work with Twitter to close down all of Rizvi’s Twitter accounts. Rizvi, on the other hand, has consistently tried to terrorise the Government of Pakistan into doing his bidding by pushing them to crack down on minorities such as Ahmadi Muslims.

We believe that the United Kingdom has had a history of providing shelter to those who are persecuted, from Kinder Transport children through to East African Asians and to those persecuted in developing countries throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Asia Bibi’s case shows how fragile and insecure Islamist extremists are when they are frightened of a woman who is of another faith. They have taken away her freedom for 8 years and then chased her away from her own country. However, it is not Asia Bibi who has been weakened. She has shown how spiritually defunct and imbecilic Islamist extremists are.

Asia Bibi should be offered sanctuary in the United Kingdom. Her presence in the United Kingdom will send out the right message that people who are persecuted because of their faith are welcome in our country. It will also send out a strong message to Islamist extremists in the UK. If you cannot respect the rights and presence of Asia Bibi, maybe it is you who should not be in this country.

For years, Faith Matters has been working to ensure that people and communities in our country, have a stake in their future and in decision making. We know full well, that disaffection and alienation are avenues by which extremists can manipulate young men and women in these vulnerable positions.

Both far right and Islamist extremists have been working for years to foment hatred and division in our communities. Yet, it is also clear that both have been feeding off each other and squeezing the middle ground of balanced opinion that is so much part of our country.

Take for example, the fact that the UK took in so many Islamist extremists who came from countries where torture and persecution were part of the norm, in places like Algeria, Libya and Syria. Whilst many fled because of persecution, by taking them into the UK, we effectively stored up problems for the future. Which leads to this question. Whilst we value the position of human rights, which is a fundamental part of the values of our country, did we truly believe that incoming Islamist extremists would be model citizens, given that many of them had bought into violent Jihad as a means of implementing their views? Did we think that they would stop their activities in the UK? Did we even consider that they would try and access Muslim communities in order to promote their sectarian, Jew-hatred and violent Jihad in our country? By allowing active Salafist Jihadists into our country, we let down the vast majority of British Muslims who were not part of this extremism and who wanted to simply practice and get on with their lives. 

We also let Islamist extremist proselytise and foment their hatred in Muslim communities and within time, their message and narrative overlaid any sense of attachment to the State within some sections of Muslim communities. It was a failed and disastrous policy that has led to social problems which many of us have had to tackle.

Muscular Liberalism

On the other side, the State has only started to use its ‘muscular liberalism’ against far right activists and groups. The Home Secretary has banned National Action and a handful of far right groups. Yet, the fact is that far right groups have splintered and are well organised and entrenched online. Their hatred of Muslims is spawning plots to harm Muslims and Muslim institutions and the State’s actions against these groups has been slow off the mark. This allied to the ‘anything goes’ attitude of social media companies, who held this position for years, meant that the hatred from far right groups consolidated the reciprocal hatred towards western values and society emanating from Islamist extremist groups. 

Faith Matters has been working to tackle both ends of the extremist spectrum for over a decade now. Yet, we cannot continue to push ahead if there is no real stomach by this and future governments who sit inactively whilst civil society groups are harassed, targeted and undermined in this battle against extremism. There comes a time when we must disengage and step out for the sake of our resources and frankly, our security. That time is coming close, unless this Government can clearly show that it is committed and has the stomach to push back in a concerted way against such groups. 

There is still a small window of hope. However, that hope is fading fast.