Whenever a horrifying atrocity takes place, there is a natural inclination to know who did it and why. With the Southport massacre last summer, a section of the Right immediately seized on the rumour that the then-unnamed Axel Rudakubana was a Muslim migrant, while another on the Left seized on the conspiracists to spread a moral panic about the far-Right.
Then, in October last year, Rudakubana shapeshifted into a jihadi terrorist. Following his conviction last week, he morphed once again into someone who had no ideological motive. However, this week there was another evolution. According to Mail Online, “Axel Rudakubana may have targeted girls at Taylor Swift dance due to ‘incel’ hatred of women.” The sole piece of evidence for this was a quotation which had appeared in a recent article in the Sunday Times: “He [Rudakubana] never spoke to girls. When my mates saw the attack they guessed it was because he was […] like an incel.”
But here’s another quote from that same article in the Sunday Times: “Police say there is no evidence Rudakubana was an incel.” Despite this lack of evidence, some feminists are convinced about the misogynistic roots of the Southport killer’s rage. “I think the ideological motive is pretty clear,” wrote one scholar on X, citing another report from a week ago in the Times which mentioned one of Rudakubana’s female schoolmates remembering “how a look would flash across his face whenever the topic of women’s rights came up in class”.
The same report is cited in an X thread by the Women’s Rights Network (WRN), which noted that “Rudakubana attacked young girls” and that he isn’t alone among terrorists in his choice of target. By way of substantiation, the WRN refers to Salman Abedi, who in 2017 carried out a suicide bombing at Manchester Arena, and an Isis-K plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Austria last August: “What do these concert audiences have in common? Young females.”
While it’s true that most of Abedi’s 22 murder victims were indeed women, it doesn’t follow from this that his motive was a hatred of women. Rather, and based on what we know about Abedi and his allegiance to Isis, his victims were chosen primarily because they were unbelievers and because they were “soft targets” whose butchering would draw maximum publicity to the Islamist cause.
To avoid any misunderstanding here, it’s worth clarifying that the WRN is absolutely right to address the matter of Rudakubana’s target selection. Why did he target those girls at that particular event? Unfortunately, Rudakubana has refused to speak about his atrocity, so nobody knows for certain. Perhaps he did harbour a deep loathing and resentment towards women and girls and wanted to violently punish them. But it’s worth noting that misogyny is extremely difficult to prove. In the cases of Jake Davison’s shooting rampage in Plymouth in 2021 and Joel Cauchi’s stabbing spree at a shopping outlet in Sydney last April, the motives for both massacres remain unclear and have never been firmly established.
It’s also eminently possible that Rudakubana targeted very young girls because they were acutely vulnerable and he could — as someone physically slight himself — maximise causalities; because he knew it would generate maximum revulsion and infamy; or because, for all we know, he decided that those girls were a sacrificial gift to the voice in his head.
A curious mind would entertain all of these possibilities and more, but instead the WRN speculates that misogyny is the prime motivator and calls for the anticipated public inquiry into the Southport massacre to investigate “the extent to which misogyny is motivating terrorism in the UK”. This is of a piece with a Home Office-ordered report leaked earlier this week, calling for the Government’s counter-extremism strategy to shift away from ideology and narrow its focus on “behaviours of concern” such as violence against women and participation in the online manosphere, which promotes misogyny and hostility to feminism.
Motive-hunting, as Coleridge called it, is an all-too-human endeavour, especially in the aftermath of an atrocity: we want to know the why. But it has also become a highly politicised game, where the whole purpose of the hunt is to dig up a motive that best suits one’s biases. Unfortunately, the case of Rudakubana is no different.
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SubscribeWas Rudakubana an incel?
Was Rudakubana confused?
Was Rudakubana a video games addict?
Was Rudakubana playing pretend knifing someone?
Was Rudakubana angry after reading Unherd?
Why does a ‘senior lecturer in criminology’ prostitute himself writing this rubbish?
I don’t care what he is, why is he still alive!
Rudakubana is a racist. he targeted white children because they were white children.
Yes – and the anti- white ideology was most probably implanted by left-wing school teachers.
Interesting theory in the light of the fact that the police found no evidence of his racism among the 160,000 documents they examined from his electronic devices.
Would that be the same police who initially told us he was a sweet little boy from Wales and there was no association with Islamism, despite the jihadi propaganda and ricin-making chemistry set?
The fact that he downloaded an al-Qaeda manual containing detailed instructions on how to commit acts of extreme violence, does not prove he had any interest in their ideology.
In fact, the police, the prosecution and the judge have been quite categorical in stating that there is no evidence he was motivated by Islamist ideology.
But followers of Tommy Robinson and their ilk know better, without needing any evidence to back up their conspiracy theories.
Clearly the point of the article is that half the country are intent on twisting the evidence to fit their own pet narrative. The feminist version is perhaps the daftest – but it’s got some stiff competition from other quarters.
So YOU know exactly what his motivations were, where’s your evidence (one that fits your prevailing narrative?) Easier to say he’s an incel just like all the white guys, but definetely not a racist. Desperate
Do be fair, I don’t think Kolya has said that – just that it isn’t clear what the motive was. Kolya, if you have your own pet theory, perhaps you could come clean on that.
“Kolya, if you have your own pet theory, perhaps you could come clean on that”
Exactly!
I think Rudakubana is psychologically demented, like the Moors murders and the killers of James Bulger. But in his case his obsession is with famous massacres and genocides, and the concomitant public revulsion and resulting infamy.
I don’t believe he was trying to advance any cause above and beyond feeding his private psychological demons.
I stand ready to revise my views if any evidence of an extrinsic goal for his behaviour emerges.
Starting every sentence with “I” is never a good sign…
I was asked to give my theory for Rudakubana’s motives. You have no evidence to refute it, other than your own subjective opinion.
My evidence for his motive is that an exhaustive investigation by the police and all the other agencies who investigated him, failed to find an ideological smoking gun.
That strongly suggests he was not acting out of an abstract ideology, but out of a visceral psychological obsession with extreme violence per se.
Ah well, we can employ that defence at every opportunity except for the white ones who are obviously racist and misogynistic because if that was not the case then the ideology behind multiculturalism would collapse, without cognitive dissonance to sustain it.
Case closed m’lord
I think to be honest both you and Kolya are making fair points. I think Kolya is right that people are simply projecting motives according to their pet ideology.
But you are right in saying that if, for example, this had been an attack by a white man on (black) girls we would jump too easily to it being motivated by misogyny (racism).
But if you think about it, you are both saying the same thing: it is wrong to jump to conclusions based on ideology, not evidence.
Like George Glashen has said he’s been very specific in his “easy” targets and just like the coward/narcissist that he is, he feels he’s the victim. He ignored the authority of the court, repeatly disrupted proceedings, covered his face and was not present when his sentence was passed.
I’d be projecting if I said progressives will be breathing a huge sigh of relief that a manifesto of sorts wasn’t found. Shame there wasn’t a proper intervention prior to his actions (the awkward question is why there wasn’t one?) then they might have come across all those arrows in his room.
You’re very naive. Even if the police had concrete evidence that he was fully signed up to ISIS they wouldn’t say so – they know they’re sitting on a powder keg.
No-one in the British state is yet ready to admit, unlike their counterparts in Sweden, that they’ve imported tens of thousands of potential mass murderers and condemned the people of this country to decades of communal violence.
The problem with debating conspiracy theorists is that they can always come up with an ad hoc explanations for why their pet theory lacks cogency.
It’s like trying to have a rational discussion with a believer in astrology.
So you’re projecting to protect your pet belief. It’s called cognitive dissonance, but hey, just call anyone who disagrees with me a conspiracy theorist and simply wish away these increasing number of atrocities as those of a mentally disturbed individual and try to normalise them.
Personally I don’t think this was terrorist attack but a racist and misogynistic one is a strong possibility.
The problem with debating virtue signallers is that they invariably mischaracterise everything you say whilst polishing their halos until their elbows ache.
Where is the evidence that the police carried out an “exhaustive investigation” ? Consider the actual cost and time required to thoroughly check the supposed 160K documents. Then tell me your confidence level that this has been done.
Well they must have completed an “exhaustive investigation” for the court case. But he then changed his plea….
So the Pakistani rape gangs are a conspiracy theory?
Does the fact that the Pakistani rape gangs are not a conspiracy theory, prove that 9/11 was an inside job, that the moon landings never happened, and that Bill Gates has injected half the world with nanobots
There’s a bunch of strawmen, so I’ll add one of my own.
Do you think a man who chokes a women to death but says it was a result of sex game between two consenting adults is an adequate defence because there wasn’t any written consent found?
Kolya the evidence is the victims. three dead white children and the injured 10. plus the women dance teachers. did he choose a mosque to target, no. did he choose, an african dance class, no. did he write a manifest, no. the actual evidence speaks for itself. he targeted white children succeded i. killing three. hes a racist.
The fact that mugger stabs a doctor in the course of a robbery does not prove he had a grudge against members of the medical profession.
A week before Rudakubana murdered the three girls, his father stopped him taking a taxi to his old school, in what the police now believe was a thwarted attempt as a school massacre.
Had he succeeded, you would now be telling us that his target selection proved he was under the influence of the Taliban, who are known to be opposed to mixed-sex education.
what do you think you’ve proved. you’ve written that thinking it proves something. hes not an imaginary mugger hes an actual child killing mass murder. hes not a thawatered school murderer is he though hes an actual child mass murderer. all his victims were white children and the woman peesented who defendwd them. do you have any imaginary scenaroes that unmake the evidence of what actually took place?
So he killed and injured little girls in the course of …… what exactly?
I think, on reflection, you’ll see what a silly argument that is. Clearly he set out to kill. What his motive was is far less clear.
Obviously he set out to kill. He had a well-documented obsession with extreme violence. The point is that all the people who are ascribing ideological motives to his violent fantasies, are just projecting their own prejudices on to him.
In fact there is absolutely no evidence that he was pursuing any ideological goal. He was just into extreme violence and the psychological kick of becoming famous for perpetrating such an act.
I think we agree. Or if he did have a motive beyond that, there is insufficient evidence for it.
Indeed.
“The point is that all the people who are ascribing ideological motives to his violent fantasies, are just projecting their own prejudices on to him”.
No, that would be you.
I’d be projecting to say (on your behalf) that he too is a victim of a being a in racial minority, who was bullied at school and responded in the only way he knew how. How many atrocities are “progressives” going to make excuses for?
Duh!?
This guy didn’t kill three little girls in the course of doing something else. What are you talking about?
What are you alleging was his agenda, when killing the girls?
Whatever it was, the police would be most grateful for your insights, because they have found no religious or ideological motive.
they have found no religious or ideological motive.
How do you know? The police have been lying about this stuff since 2007.
There’s no point debating these anti-white racists. All they care about is protecting their precious ‘victim’ supremacy narrative. Everyone knows for a 100% fact what their tune would be if a victim offender roles were reversed. These are the rankest of rank hypocrites.
Do you seriously believe that a 17 year old could have 160,000 documents on a computer ? If each was only 1 A4 page of text (a certain underestimate), there wouldn’t have been enough time for him to read them all (111 days at 24 hours/day). I bet none of us have 160K documents.
And how long for the police to actually properly check these supposed 160K documents ?
So your narrative about the investigation of the murders presupposes that the police are fabricating information?
The beauty of the conspiracy paradigm is that if the facts don’t fit, just invent another layer of conspiracy-mongering. That way you can explain literally anything – regardless of whether it is true or false
the fact is he targeted white children, killing 3, injuring 10. no conspiricy theorising can get you out of that fact Kolya
Not at all. Where did I say anything about that ?
I’m merely observing that the things you’re reporting here as fact seem to contain some obvious inconsistencies and contradictions.
I made no assumptions about where you sourced your information from (directly from the police or otherwise).
Nor do I have any “narrative” about the investigation.
But I do find some basic sanity checking can be helpful.
He was a son of Rwanda obsessed with genocide. His family were also rumoured to have been complicit in the 1990s genocide and should never been given asylum in the UK. He was demonstrating violent traits that spoke of his family background but no agency would pick up in him for reasons of being accused of racial profiling. Given their background, his parents themselves even reported him to the authorities- they seem in retrospect to be the only people who knew what they were doing.
Great comment.
As reported by social media rumour-mongering.
The problem of Rudakubana is very different. There is one motive which the government and Unherd will do anything not to discuss. Look the other way please. Let’s not ask about the content of the Al-qaeda terrorist manual.
Do you mean Rudakubana’s version published by the US Air Force, and freely available to download from the internet?
You’ve got a copy of that? And you know Rudakubana had the same? How?
Yes, I downloaded a copy from the internet. And I know Rudakubana has the same version, because he was charged with possession of a pdf file entitled “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The Al-Qaeda Training Manual”, which was published by the US Air Force Counterproliferation Center, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.
https://www.merseyside.police.uk/news/merseyside/news/2024/october/statement-from-chief-constable-serena-kennedy-and-partners-following-further-charges-for-axel-rudakubana/
I’m English. It would be a criminal offence for me to have a downloaded copy. What does it say about targeting Westerners? And about knife attacks?
I haven’t studied it closely. I downloaded it in order to understand why an al-Qaeda manual was being published by the US Air Force.
It turns out to be a heavily annotated US military study of the original manual, presumably published for intelligence and training purposes for the benefit of the US military.
But the salient point in the context of the Rudakubana case, is that obtaining a copy of the document entailed no contact with Islamists.
Presumably there’s a chapter on knife attacks. What does it say? Any techniques there? Any advice on who to target?
I haven’t studied it in depth. But I understand it has detailed instructions on how to kill effectively with a knife and how to make ricin, among numerous other methods of killing.
Having examined 160,000 documents taken from his electronic devices, the police have said they have found no indication that his goals were influenced by Islamist ideology. It appears he used it as a how-to manual, with a view to serving his own private psychopathological ends.
So you think he used what he learnt from the terrorist manual, technique wise so to speak, watched the Islamic knife attack on the Australian bishop, but all along he was just copying the Islamic terrorist tecnique? He was picking up a skill?
And once he had mastered the Islamic terrorist techniques, he thought, what the hell, let’s see if I can do it as well as my teachers.
And it’s just bad luck he stumbled on an Al-qaeda terrorist technique manual. If it had been a cooking manual he had downloaded, he would now be on junior Masterchef?
Unless it was the Anarchist Cookbook!
Nobody is questioning that he was obsessed with extreme violence. But nobody has pointed to an iota of evidence that he was influenced by Islamism, or any other ideology.
Just a week earlier, he was all set to perpetrate a massacre at his old school. So how would you have spun your Islamist narrative if his father had failed to dissuade him from that attack?
I expect murdering English girls in a dance class or murdering them in a school or in a concert or in a park is neither here nor there to Islamic terrorists. It is a job well done for them.
There is no evidence in the public domain that Rudakubana had any contact with Islamists – whether online or in real life – or that he had even converted to Islam. All the theories to that effect are the products of wishful thinking on the part of those who are seeking a justification for hating Muslims.
There is evidence in the public domain. He had an Islamic terrorist manual in his possession. He watched Islamic terrorist videos. He butchered young girls in a dance class, which is anti-Western Islamic terrorism in action. What do the most extreme Islamicists hate most about the West? Women who are free to enjoy express themselves and enjoy themselves in public.
Yes. Exactly. Why is that so difficult to believe? Unless you really are a robot.
I think that you’re right that it doesn’t prove motive in itself. He could have downloaded the Anarchist Cookbook.
I love this author.
It’s like a victims version of “I’m Spartacus”.
Simon Cottee’s next article will explain the striking similarities between the knife skills picked up by Rudakubana in the al-Qaeda terrorist manual and those taught in basic cookery classes. The dexterity of handling a knife is shared by both.
“And what was the young man thinking as he chopped up the girls in the dance class? Wasn’t he just imagining and realising the skills he had seen on Masterfchef? What do we really know? What you think only reveals your bias!”
Remember when feminists used to take on loud, obnoxious, male chauvinist rugby playing types? Now they pick on men in frocks, the incurably shy and men who can’t get a girlfriend.
Talk about kicking a man when he’s down.
He is not an incel
He had also deleted 99%of his browsing history according to the Detective Superintendant of Merseyside police in a statement after the trial
Government note to the media.
“There are reports Rudakubana is now a practising Muslim in prison. We want you to understand and convey to your readers that this in no way implies any affiliation with Islam. Tell your readers he just llkes the new clothes. He can move more freely now.”
Internal Unherd memo. Cottee will do that. If he says no, double his fee.
Calling a terrorist an incel is obviously word displacement.
He targeted white children at a Taylor Swift event for a reason. He is documented to have spoken about ‘white genocide’ twice.
This sort of hate fits a pattern seen Europe wide. Why is it so difficult for some to mention the phrase ‘anti-white’ even when the evidence is overwhelming? There’s obviously something else going on. Some other consideration preventing them. I wonder if there’s a sinister ‘code of conduct’ that prevents journalists and opinion writers from pointing to the giant elephant in front of them?
Next week Cottee, the great criminal mind, will be here to explain why Starmer”s suits and glasses were not paid for by Lord Ali at all. That is just your bias!. Only an evil Tory would think that. And Rachel Reeves didn’t lie on her cv. Just more bias. And we have never had such Free Speech as in 2025… You can choose what words mean. How free is that!
What a dreadful article. Reading that is like bathing in dirty water.
You come out dirtier than when you got in.
Or perhaps he is a druid.
As C S Lewis put it, all find what they truly seek. If you’re looking for an ‘incel’, you’ll find one. Or if you’re looking for a misogynist, you’ll find one.
Lewis, who was tutored by a severe logician, might have recommended a mind that looked for evidence rather than one that was merely ‘curious’.
If every time a journalist wrote ‘may’, ‘could’, ‘might’, they had to give £500 to a charity they would be dissuaded from using these words that only add to the fog obscuring the subject.
C.S. Lewis wrote hilariously sexist content himself. I’ll never forget reading his justification for why women should never be involved in military defense. It was along the lines of “a man told me how irrationally defensive mothers are of their children. They can’t make logical decisions because their maternal instinct will lead them to attack others simply to protect their own children.”
I was 16. Very disappointed, though in that age, it was nothing new. It was after I’d read his dreadful Cupid & Psyche (or something about the female character). I appreciated that he was acknowledging the corrosive role of female envy in harming innocent, well-meaning women (I was going thru that in my own family), but then I realized he was writing from the perspective of a male who simply valued females for their beauty & wasn’t actually considering what it was like to live in a body either sexually objectified by males, or sexually vilified, or ignored.
Why did the family leave Rwanda where as Tutsis they were well placed for “better life” in Wales?
Is there something we have not been told about their background in Rwanda?
Any eejit can see that some element of hatred for women and girls was entailed, whatever other motives and causes there may have been; the only male victim was someone who was trying to stop him. Pace the author there is no widespread application of the incel tag, although the cap fits, as does jihadist, especially in its cowardly nature. What is peculiar is the number of commentators deflecting from the pure hatred that has been manifested in both the planning and perpetration of the deeds, and why the people who should have intervened beforehand to preempt any atrocity were purportedly hampered by clarity of definition on the nature of his motivation for fear of legal challenge.