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UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has hit back at Elon Musk over his comments on Britain’s handling of historic sex abuse cases, as French President Emmanuel Macron also expressed alarm at the billionaire’s interventions in European politics.
Musk has criticised Starmer and UK safeguarding minister Jess Phillips in a series of posts on X in recent days, mainly to complain about failures in holding perpetrators to account.
In a speech in Epsom, Surrey, on Monday, Starmer said that “a line has been crossed”, adding that “those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible, they’re not interested in victims — they are interested in themselves”.
The prime minister’s comments came as other European leaders reacted to Musk’s escalating social media interventions in the continent’s politics, with Macron expressing particular concern at the role of the billionaire confidant of US president-elect Donald Trump.
Starmer said: “We have seen this playbook many times — whipping up of intimidation and of threats of violence, hoping that the media will amplify it . . . When the poison of the far right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and others, then in my book a line has been crossed.”
Musk, who has repeatedly posted about UK politics since Labour was elected in July, has recently described Phillips as a “rape genocide apologist” and a “wicked witch”.
He has posted dozens of times about a historic scandal involving sexual grooming gangs in the north of England.
On Monday, Musk responded: “Starmer was deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes.”
He appeared to be referring to the prime minister’s previous role overseeing the UK’s prosecution office when evidence of the gangs came to light more than a decade ago.
Later on Monday Yvette Cooper, UK home secretary, announced several initiatives to tackle child grooming gangs including longer prison sentences, saying “the punishment must fit the terrible crime”.
Grooming will be treated as an aggravating factor, which makes a crime more serious, when judges sentence offenders for specified child sex offences including rape.
Cooper also told the House of Commons the government would set up a new “victims and survivors panel” and it will become mandatory to report abuse via the imminent crime and policing bill.
Allegations that Starmer bears some responsibility for failings in bringing the grooming gangs to justice stem, in particular, from a case in 2009 when a decision was taken not to prosecute alleged perpetrators in the town of Rochdale.
Lawyers at the time believed the victim would not come across as reliable or credible.
Starmer had been director of public prosecutions for nine months when the decision was taken, but there is no evidence to suggest he was made aware of the details of the case at the time.
Starmer said on Monday that as chief prosecutor for five years, he tackled the gangs head-on and reopened various cases, noting: “When I left office, we had the highest number of child sexual abuse cases being prosecuted on record.”
He also criticised those — including Musk — who have supported far-right agitator Tommy Robinson, saying he was a man who went to prison for almost collapsing a grooming case.
In his comments, Macron signalled his alarm at Musk’s endorsement of the far-right Alternative for Germany party ahead of the German election next month.
“If we had been told that the owner of one of the world’s biggest social media networks would support a new reactionary international [movement] and would intervene directly in elections including in Germany, who would have imagined it?” Macron said at a conference of ambassadors on Monday. “This is the world we live in.”
But the German government tried to downplay the role of the X owner in the country’s politics.
“We act as if Mr Musk’s statements on Twitter could influence a country of 84mn people with untruths or half-truths or expressions of opinion,” a spokesperson said on Monday. “This is simply not the case.”
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the UK Conservatives, said her party would put forward an amendment on Wednesday to the children’s wellbeing bill in parliament calling for a “full national inquiry into the rape gangs grooming scandal”.
“If the amendment is selected, I hope MPs from all parties will vote to support the inquiry, so we can do right by the victims and end the culture of cover-ups,” she said.
But Starmer accused her of “jumping on a bandwagon” and “amplifying what the far right is saying” on child sexual abuse after failing to act “for 14 long years”.
Labour has criticised the last Conservative government for not implementing the recommendations of a seven-year review into the sexual abuse of children in the UK that reported in 2022.
Earlier on Monday, Musk, who has been chosen by Trump to co-lead a US department of government efficiency, suggested that the US should “liberate the people of Britain” by overthrowing the government.
Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the rhetoric was proof that the UK could not rely on the incoming Trump administration.
“People have had enough of Elon Musk interfering with our country’s democracy when he clearly knows nothing about Britain,” he added.
