British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hit back at Elon Musk Monday after the world's richest man made several inflammatory accusations against the country's leader over his government's record on the long-running national child gardening scandal.
Musk has accused the UK leader of being “complicated in British coercion” on his X platform and has been raising evidence-free allegations that Starmer knowingly refused to prosecute builders children when he was the country's top lawyer.
LEON NEAL/Getty Images
Over the past 48 hours alone, Musk has called for Starmer to be jailed and sent a poll to his X followers asking whether America should free the British people from their tyrannical government.”
Although the British leader did not name Musk directly, he widely criticized what he described as the spread of false information.
“Those who spread lies and misinformation as far and wide as possible, they are not interested in victims. They are interested in themselves,” Starmer said, speaking to reporters at press conference on Monday.
Musk's barbs refer to a years-long scandal in Britain over the state's response to child sex and grooming gangs, mostly made up of Pakistani men, who targeted young girls so- wounded in several towns across the north of England.
A government-commissioned report in 2014 found that around 1,400 vulnerable children were targeted and sexually abused in the town of Rotherham – the country's largest single case of child rearing – between 1997 and 2013. The report explained how children as young as 11 years old were subjected to human trafficking, rape and other forms of abuse physical.
That report was highly critical of “the general failures of political leadership and officers” and said that “growing evidence that child sexual exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham” had been ignored and even suppressed by authorities.
Starmer was director of public prosecutions between 2008 and 2013, a role he held in practice as the country's chief prosecutor when the child care scandals came to light.
On Monday, Starmer mounted a vigorous defense of his alleged record.
“I brought the first major prosecution of an Asian grooming organization in this particular case… it was the first of its kind. We changed, or I changed, the whole way of prosecution, because I to challenge, and to challenge the myths and stereotypes that prevented these victims from being heard,” said the Prime Minister.
“When I left office, we had the largest number of child sexual abuse cases ever prosecuted,” Starmer said.
A 2013 British parliamentary report praised Starmer's handling of child sex trafficking and grooming groups.
“Mr Starmer has sought to improve the treatment of victims of sexual assault within the criminal justice system during his tenure as Director of Public Prosecutions. .
Starmer, who took office after Labour's landslide election victory last summer, has so far resisted pressure from critics to launch a new national review into abuse historical child sexual abuse, saying that many reviews at national and local level have already been done. on the case.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Responding to those comments from this morning, Musk posted on X that the “real reason” Starmer isn't doing a national review is because it would “show how Starmer was once again Avoid the requests of large numbers of little girls and their parents, in order. to gain political support.”
Musk, a top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, has been embroiled in a conflict with Starmer's centre-left Labor government ever since. furthest rippers caused chaos across the United Kingdom last summer.
Musk at the time called Britain a “police state” after the Starmer government strongly prosecuted those involved in the riots.
Over the past week, Musk has also called for the release of far-right activist Tommy Robinson, a key figure in shaping last summer's violence.
Robinson – real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – is a long-time right-wing campaigner who led the English Defense League, a group that UK police authorities linked to the original violent protest that sparked nationwide riots. in August.
Robinson is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for contempt of court.
The very public spat with the British government is just the latest in a series of interventions by Musk into the domestic politics of key US allies in Europe.
In an op-ed for German outlet Welt am Sonntag published last month, Musk added public support to the far rightanti-migration AfD party in the upcoming elections in the country in February.
“The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the last spark of hope for this country,” Musk wrote in his translated statement.
European leaders have been strongly critical of the tech billionaire's involvement and have publicly expressed concerns about Musk's influence considering his ownership of the X platform.
The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, said on Monday that Musk is directly involved in German affairs.
“Ten years ago, who could have imagined if we were told that the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support a new international reactionary movement and join the participate directly in elections, including in Germany,” Macron said in his wide-ranging speech on foreign policy.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere also said Monday that Musk's victory was a cause for concern.
“It worries me that a man with very good social media access and huge economic resources is so directly involved in the internal affairs of other countries,” Stoere told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, according to Reuters news agency. .
“This is not the way things should be between democracies and allies,” Store said.
contributed to this report.
