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UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has hit back at Elon Musk over his comments about Britain’s handling of historic sex abuse cases, after French President Emmanuel Macron also expressed alarm at the billionaire’s meddling in European politics.
Musk has criticized Starmer and UK defense minister Jess Phillips in a series of posts on X in recent days, mainly to complain about failures to hold perpetrators accountable.
In a speech in Epsom, Surrey, on Monday, Starmer said “a line has been crossed”, adding that “those who are spreading lies and misinformation as far as possible, they are not interested in the victims – they are interested in themselves”.
The prime minister’s comments came as other European leaders reacted to Musk’s escalating social media intrusions into the continent’s politics, with Macron expressing particular concern over the role of the billionaire confidant of US President-elect Donald Trump.
Starmer said: “We’ve seen this playbook many times – inciting fear and threats of violence, hoping the media will amplify it. . . When the venom of the far right leads to serious threats against Jess Phillips and others, then a line is crossed in my book.”
Musk, who has tweeted repeatedly about UK politics since Labor was elected in July, recently described Phillips as a “rape genocide apologist” and an “evil witch”.
He has posted dozens of times about a landmark scandal involving grooming gangs in the north of England.
On Monday, Musk responded: “Starmer was deeply complicit in mass rape for votes.”
He appeared to be referring to the prime minister’s previous role in overseeing the UK’s prosecution office when the gangs’ evidence came to light more than a decade ago.
Later on Monday, Yvette Cooper, the UK’s home secretary, announced several initiatives to tackle child care gangs, including longer prison sentences, saying “the punishment must fit the heinous crime “.
Care will be treated as an aggravating factor, which makes a crime more serious, when judges sentence offenders for certain child sexual offenses, including rape.
Cooper also told the House of Commons that the government would set up a “new victim and survivor panel” and make reporting of abuse mandatory through the upcoming crime and police law.
Allegations that Starmer bears some responsibility for failures to bring care gangs to justice stem, in particular, from a case in 2009 when a decision was made not to prosecute alleged perpetrators in the town of Rochdale.
Lawyers at the time believed that the victim would not be as reliable or trustworthy.
Starmer had been director of public prosecutions for nine months when the decision was made, but there is no evidence to suggest he was made aware of the details of the case at the time.
Starmer said Monday that as attorney general for five years, he tackled gangs head-on and reopened various cases, noting: “When I left office, we had the highest number of child sexual abuse cases prosecuted in history.”
He also criticized those – including Musk – who have supported far-right agitator Tommy Robinson, saying he was a man who went to jail for nearly knocking down a clean-up case.
In his comments, Macron signaled his alarm at Musk’s endorsement of the far-right Alternative for Germany party ahead of German elections next month.
“If we had been told that the owner of one of the world’s largest social media networks would support a new international reactionary (movement) and directly interfere in elections, including in Germany, who would have imagined?” Macron said at a conference of ambassadors on Monday. “This is the world we live in.”
But the German government tried to minimize the role of the owner of X in the country’s politics.
“We act as if Mr. Musk’s statements on Twitter could influence a country of 84 million people with untruths or half-truths or expressions of opinion,” a spokesman said Monday. “That’s just not the case.”
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the UK Conservatives, said her party will table an amendment on Wednesday to the child welfare bill in parliament calling for a “full national inquiry into the gang-rape-fixing scandal”. .
“If the amendment is passed, I hope MPs from all parties will vote to support the inquiry so we can do the right thing by victims and end the culture of cover-up,” she said.
But Starmer accused him of “jumping on a bandwagon” and “reinforcing what the far right is saying” about child sexual abuse after failing to act “for 14 long years”.
Labor has criticized the last Tory government for not implementing the recommendations of a seven-yearly review into child sexual abuse in the UK that was reported in 2022.
Earlier on Monday, Musk, who has been tapped by Trump to co-head a US government efficiency department, suggested the US should “liberate the people of Britain” by overthrowing the government.
Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the rhetoric was proof that the UK could not count on the incoming Trump administration.
“People have had enough of Elon Musk interfering in our country’s democracy when he clearly knows nothing about Britain,” he added.
