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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 the UK safeguarding minister 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.
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.
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.”