Home Secretary Jess Phillips has said the “misinformation” spread by Elon Musk about vigilante gangs in the UK and the government’s response is “putting her life at risk”.
Phillips has been repeatedly attacked by the tech billionaire, who has labeled her a “wicked witch” and “rape genocide apologist” while calling for her to be jailed.
Britain has been rocked in recent days by a row over the handling of landmark grooming cases involving the sexual exploitation of girls by gangs of mainly British-Pakistani men after Musk called for a new national inquiry into the scandal.
Musk’s outbursts against Phillips, who holds the UK government’s defense office, began after it emerged she had rejected a request from Oldham council for the Home Office to launch a Whitehall-led inquiry into the town’s care scandal. of Greater Manchester.
Instead, the Home Office has asked the local authority to undertake its own review, citing precedents for investigations in other gang-rape towns, including Telford and Rotherham, while calling for a national inquiry into the sexual exploitation of children that ended in 2022.
On Tuesday, Phillips told the BBC that threats to her life had increased since Musk’s attacks on her on his social media platform X, describing the situation as “very tiring” but adding: “I I’m no stranger to people who don’t know what they’re talking about trying to silence women like me.”
However, she added that her treatment at Musk’s hands was “nothing” compared to what victims of abuse experience.
Phillips told Sky News that SpaceX owner Musk should “get on with getting to Mars” and expressed her anger at political opponents, including Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who have pushed for a national inquiry into care gangs after Musk made the same request.
Musk has been contacted for comment.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer issued a strong defense of Phillips on Monday, praising her record in protecting female victims of violence and abuse.
Phillips’ comments came after shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick admitted the Tories could have “done more” to crack down on sex abuse gangs while in government.
Jenrick defended the previous Tory administration’s record, but he told the BBC: “Could we have done more, should we be doing more now? Yes, absolutely – we have to root this out.”
He said a review by Professor Alexis Jay, who led a seven-year national inquiry into child sexual abuse in England and Wales, reported in 2022, only looked at gang-rapes in six cities, but added they may have operated up to 50 cities.
Jenrick also defended his party’s criticism of the Labor government’s decision not to launch a Whitehall-led inquiry into the Oldham scandal.
Challenged over the last Tory government’s refusal to launch an inquiry into gang-rapes in Oldham, he said the previous request came from a “small number of councillors”, while the latest was from the local authority itself.
Jenrick, who stood unsuccessfully for the Conservative leadership last year, defended his controversial comments last week that the mass migration of people into the UK from “foreign cultures” with “medieval attitudes towards women” had contributed to the scandal.
He said he would not “disguise” or “sanitise” his language to avoid causing offence, pointing to evidence that fear of being labeled a racist had contributed to the failure of authorities to take action against the predominantly male gangs. of Pakistani origin.
Starmer has accused Tory politicians of “reinforcing what the far right is saying” about child sexual exploitation after failing to act “for 14 long years”.
Jay on Tuesday said there had been “politicization” of the case and warned that a new inquiry could delay the implementation of her review’s recommendations.
She criticized people for “jumping into the debate” on the issue “in a very uninformed way”.
Jay has previously criticized the former Tory government for failing to implement 20 key recommendations in its 2022 report, which warned of “endemic” abuse across society.
