UK Prime Minister Starmer slams ‘lies’ after Musk tirade

Following days of hostile attacks from Elon Musk over historical child rape crimes in northern England, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has defended his record and criticized those “spreading lies.”

Without mentioning US billionaire Musk by name, Starmer said on Monday, “Those who are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as widely as possible are interested in themselves.”

In response to a question about Musk’s recent criticism of his handling of child rape cases, he was responding to a question at a National Health Service-related event in Surrey, United Kingdom.

In recent days, Musk has criticised him and other Labour figures for their recent history of paedophile grooming gangs, which first surfaced during Starmer’s tenure as director of public prosecutions.

Some UK opposition politicians have joined the criticism and call for a new national investigation as a result of Musk’s tirade, which included demands for a new public inquiry into the scandal.

“We’ve seen this playbook many times, whipping up of intimidation and threats of violence, hoping that the media will amplify it”, Starmer said.

The prime minister made it clear that Jess Phillips, his safeguarding minister, had been subject to serious threats. In a post last week on his social media platform X, Muhammad called her a “rape genocide apologist.”

Starmer said that when the far-right’s poison makes serious threats to Jess Phillips and others, a line has been crossed in my opinion because he was making a more general point than directly addressing Musk’s comments.

” I enjoy the cut and thrust of politics, the robust debate that we must have, but that’s got to be based on facts and truth, not on lies, “he added.

The issue has long been seized upon by far-right figures, in particular the imprisoned Tommy Robinson, one of the UK’s best-known far-right agitators, whom Musk has praised.

In one of his X posts on Thursday, Musk claimed that Robinson was in prison” for telling the truth “and that” he should be freed. “

A 2014 inquiry found at least 1, 400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation in Rotherham, northern England, between 1997 and 2013.