UK train stabbing: Huntingdon attack exposes Britain’s shattered confidence as a 32-year-old man is arrested

As news broke of the Huntingdon train attack on Saturday night there was a sense of déjà vu.

On a Saturday night in June 2017, three terrorists rammed a van into people on London Bridge and carried out a mass stabbing at Borough Market. Eight people were murdered, including two young Australian women.

Last Saturday night, a similar sense of dread unfolded as news broke that multiple people had been stabbed by an attacker on a moving train north of London.

Terrorism was quickly ruled out as a motive, even though many were quick to assume that it was Islamist-inspired and or carried out by a migrant.

Neither was true. The only suspect, who is being held for questioning, is a British citizen and a black male. Police said he was from Peterborough, where he boarded the train.

Just as in 2017, when that year’s five terror attacks also inspired tremendous bravery, such as the “F*** you, I’m Millwall” football fan who took on the Borough Market attackers and survived being stabbed eight times, so did Saturday night’s train attack.

A staff member working for the train company LNER, who tried to stop the attacker from stabbing more people, is in a life-threatening condition in hospital.

“Having viewed the CCTV from the train, the actions of the member of rail staff were nothing short of heroic and undoubtedly saved people’s lives,” Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Cundy said in a statement on Sunday.

Five others who were being treated in hospital were released.

Iraq war veteran Andrew Johnson, who served in the Royal Navy was identified as the quick-thinking train driver who quickly diverted from a fast track to a slow track so that the train could stop at Huntington station, enabling police to attend and passengers to escape their moving prison.

The five 2017 terrorist attacks marked a horror year for Britain.

But in 2025, this attack is set against a more dangerous backdrop.

The pervading mood that Britain is broken, or as the research group More in Common reported earlier this year, “Britain in 2025 feels shattered”.

Firstly, the economy is barely growing, inflation is rising and unemployment is ticking up.

Secondly, there is the issue of lawlessness when it comes to low-level crimes. Phone snatching is out of control and happens once every six minutes in London, with 80,000 stolen in 2024.

One high-net-worth Indian told The Nightly that their travel agent now advised against taking expensive jewellery and watches to London, because of the risk of mugging.

Shoplifting is rife, so much so that it is not uncommon to visit a grocery store and see basic goods such as cuts of meat tagged with security devices.

Parcel thefts from homes are also rampant and is something I have personally experienced multiple times, happily in one instance, leading to a successful prosecution.

The irony is that more serious crimes, including knife crimes and murders, are actually declining. But the explosion of petty crimes, which many feel go unpunished, has added to the sense of helplessness and a determination that something radical is needed as a solution.

The Labour Government vaguely promised ‘change’, but no one feels they are getting on better than this time two years ago.

More in Common found that seven in ten Britons think that the country is not just on the wrong track but that “many are starting to conclude that the problems with our country lie not in one party or political leader, but with the system itself.”

This is the sentiment that is feeding enormous fragmentation in voting with populist left and right parties, the Greens and Reform surging in the polls.

And then there is migration.

Alongside the anaemic economy is the issue of immigration as the twin drivers of Britain’s mutinous mood. The UK’s failure to stop small boats crossing the Channel from France has opened up a wider conversation about the levels of overall immigration, and pertinently integration.

This is what Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform, was getting at when he said in his statement reacting to the attack: “We need to know who committed these awful attacks as soon as possible.”

The shadow of the 2024 Southport attacks, when Axel Rudakubana, the British-born son of Rwandan Christian migrants, killed three girls at a dance class, also looms large.

When misinformation spread, falsely speculating about Rudakubana’s religion, rioters clashed with police and damaged a mosque, and there were days of mass anti-immigration protests and riots.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s only response to the Huntingdon attack was issued in the hours after the stabbings.

“The appalling incident on a train near Huntingdon is deeply concerning,” he said in a post on X.

“My thoughts are with all those affected, and my thanks go to the emergency services for their response.”

It was a classically cautious response from Sir Keir that felt mismatched to the fear and terror that those who witnessed the attack expressed.

“We looked back and I could see this tall Black male, early 30s… he looked dead behind the eyes, and he was moving towards us, chasing us with what looked like a kitchen knife. It was bloodied and he was moving through the carriages,” a witness told reporter Christian Calgie of The Express.

“It was like he had a mission to stab anyone he saw right in front of him,” Amira Ostalski told the BBC.

“There was blood everywhere, people were screaming, ‘he’s got a knife’

“People were getting trampled on, it was a very busy train, so people were just trying to run away from the attacker, and people were falling, and people were standing on them. It was horrible.”

“I could have been next…I don’t think I’ll be able to sit on a train anymore, I feel so vulnerable.”

It was the British-born Conservative Leader, Kemi Badenoch, who grew up in her parent’s native Nigeria, who best captured the public mood.

“Why is it that despite so much activity, legislation to ban knives, so much investment in mental health, we’re seeing more violence on our streets,” Ms Badenoch asked.

“What is causing this? Lots of people will be speculating - I think we should wait until more facts emerge.

“But there’s clearly something going wrong in our society right now, which I believe all politicians of all parties need to have a conversation about.”

The British are characteristically stoic about picking themselves up after horrific traumas.

London North Eastern Railway said trains would resume running normally on Monday. But the visceral nature of Saturday’s attack, however random investigations may possibly conclude it to be, adds to an underlying sense that Britain is changing, just not for the better.