As if US president Donald Trump's ear wasn't enough, tech billionaire Elon Musk has been on a tear this week, excoriating European politicians on the left and right. right, and using posts on his social media platform, X, to disrupt politics across the continent.
The president of France, politicians in Germany and officials with the European Commission have all felt Musk's wrath online, over issues of propriety and perceived hypocrisy. saying. But it is his withering attacks on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other UK politicians that have stood out.
In a 72-hour span starting over the weekend, Musk suggested that King Charles should fire Starmer and call a new election, and pushed the false claim that Starmer was “heavily involved” the great rape” and that he should be sent to prison.
Musk also posted that it may be up to the United States to “liberate” the British from their “tyrannical government”.
These charges have been based on Starmer's role in an ugly chapter of recent British judicial history, the prosecution of gangs of mainly Pakistani men who pimped and sexually exploited thousands of girls between about 1997 and 2013.
Starmer was head of the country's Crown Prosecution Service which began in 2008 and oversaw many of the criminal prosecutions. Musk, in the absence of any evidence and in the face of several investigations that said otherwise, has blamed Starmer for the lack of action.
An investigation in 2022 by Scottish child protection expert Professor Alexis Jay concluded that, although there was no alleged cover-up, local authorities – but not Starmer – had made mistakes.
In recent days, Elon Musk posted on X to criticize the UK government's handling of the historic child gardening scandal. UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Musk's comments were 'ill-judged and certainly ill-informed'. Musk also recently expressed support for Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, the founder of the English far-right Defense League.
Musk also blasted Jess Phillips, the Labor cabinet minister now in charge of women's protection, calling for her to apologize for “rape genocide” for refusing to accept calls for another national inquiry – although Jay has said that new research would only delay the implementation of the recommendations from her statement.
Long-time UK politics watcher Tim Bale at Queen Mary University of London says Musk's outspoken accusations have put Labor on the defensive and given new weapons to opponents on the political right .
“In my years of covering British politics, I don't recall an incident like this,” Bale told CBC News. “(Musk's) goal seems to be to bring down the British government and also to emphasize to Donald Trump that this is not an administration he wants to be friends with.”
France and Norway are raising concerns
Starmer's Labor Party is one of the few left-wing governments left in Europe, with recent elections seeing seismic shifts to the right, including in Italy, Slovakia and the Netherlands.
Germany's Social Democrats may be the next to fall, with elections coming up in February and Chancellor Olaf Scholz widely expected to go down in defeat.
Musk has backed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and has said he plans to use X to hold talks with its leader, Alice Weidel, who is a critic on multiculturalism. Some prominent AfD members have been ostrich for not forgetting the war crimes of the Nazis.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron slammed Musk for “direct interference” in European elections. Other EU leaders want regulators to face fines and other legal sanctions against Musk for improperly using his social media platform.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre was quoted by Reuters as saying that Musk's political influence has been deeply worrying, while a spokesman for the Spanish government said on Tuesday that social media platforms must always be ” absolute neutrality.”
Bale says the goal of Musk's intervention may be to force unfriendly European governments to support tougher legislation that could hurt tech companies. The UK, for example, has just introduced a new digital regulations act with a stronger focus on big tech companies and their business models.
“Maybe (Musk) is going to make it harder for the British government to regulate social media platforms,” Bale said.
The German government is accusing Elon Musk of trying to influence its upcoming election after he showed support for the far-right AfD party in a ceremony. Musk's op-ed was published in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper over the weekend, and was met with criticism from politicians and the resignation of the paper's opinion editor.
Fighting with Farage
But a friendly relationship with Musk doesn't seem to be a guarantee of avoiding his wrath.
Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK who just three weeks ago was at Trump's Mar-a-Largo estate with Musk and expected the tech mogul to make a big donation to his growing party suddenly found himself popular, himself on the outside, as Musk said. that he would be the leader of the party.
UK reform supports policies such as deep cuts to immigration, scrapping zero emissions targets and massive tax and spending cuts.
The rift between the two men appears to stem from Musk's insistence that far-right activist and anti-Islamic crusader Tommy Robinson should be freed from prison. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, is a member of an openly fascist British political party who has served several terms in prison, including fraud and contempt of court.
Both Farage and Starmer – who rarely agree on much – claim that Robinson's use of Facebook Live and the issuing of a judge's order by broadcasting details of a 2018 sexual exploitation case in the Huddersfield community almost resulted in a mistrial.
Farage, who has been trying to balance his image at Reform UK to attract more Tory supporters, has said Robinson's courtship could do “big damage” to his party. But Musk has fall Robinson deserves to be freed – and that Farage should be sacked.
Starmer hits back
In one of his strongest public statements since becoming prime minister last summer, Starmer took aim at Musk on Tuesday, accusing the world's richest man of spreading lies .
“I'm willing to call this for what it is. We've seen this playbook many times, producing fear and threats of violence, hoping the media will amplify it,” Starmer said. “When the poison of the far right leads to real dangers for Jess Phillips and others, then in my book, a line has been crossed.”
Many in the UK also blamed Musk for lighting fires and inciting violence after the murder of three young people at a dance class in Southport, England, this summer. Musk dismissed conspiracy theories from right-wing accounts linking the incident to mass immigration, saying a UK “civil war” was inevitable.
It is difficult to measure how much traction Musk's intervention is getting with the British public. After Musk's social media attacks, pollster YouGov said repost his most recent poll from November, showing that Musk was unpopular at the time with 64 percent of the British public.
On the other hand, the Labor Party may be concerned that Musk's attacks – whether they are genuine or not – could do damage nonetheless.
A Labor cabinet minister appeared to respond to Musk's recent allegations with naming that people who do not report child sexual abuse could face criminal prosecution as part of a new law to be introduced later in 2025 – one of the recommendations in Professor Jay's report.
For Starmer, and other European politicians, attacking Musk carries risks, says Bale of Saint Mary's.
“They know Musk is very close to Trump, and by offending Musk, they might turn Trump against them.”
