'Lies and misinformation': Sir Keir Starmer hits back at Elon Musk in response to Tesla and X owner

Sir Keir Starmer has hit out at the likes of Elon Musk for “spreading lies and misinformation” over child grooming gangs, as the Prime Minister accused politicians of “jumping on the bandwagon”.

The defence was launched as UK home secretary Yvette Cooper said a “significant package of measures” would be announced by the government in the next few weeks aimed at tackling online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

She said the policies would also target abuse images generated using artificial intelligence, with the government to set up a “victims and survivors panel” to advise on “wider work around child sexual exploitation and abuse”.

Mr Musk, the multi-billionaire and owner of social media platform X, has accused the Prime Minister of being “complicit in the rape of Britain” while serving as director of public prosecutions.

This comes amid mounting calls for the UK government to launch a new public inquiry into child grooming gangs.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. | Benjamin Cremel/Getty Images

Responding to questions about a slew of social media posts from Tesla owner Mr Musk, Sir Keir said “a line has been crossed” when safeguarding minister Jess Phillips and others receive serious threats as a result of the “poison of the far-right”.

However, Downing Street later suggested the government had “no plans” to come off X.

Sir Keir’s comments follow a flurry of posts by Mr Musk on X, in which the billionaire claimed Ms Phillips “deserves to be in prison” for denying requests for the Home Office to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham, Greater Manchester, and called her a “rape genocide apologist”.

Mr Musk has also called Sir Keir a “national embarrassment” and suggested the Prime Minister should be in prison. The US multi-billionaire has said former prime minister Gordon Brown “committed an unforgivable crime against the British people”.

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Several senior Conservative and Reform MPs have also called for a national inquiry into child grooming gangs, after a request for this was rejected by Ms Phillips.

Sir Keir called out the posts during a speech on Monday morning, although avoided directly naming Mr Musk.

Elon Musk. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images.

He said: “Those who are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are not interested in victims, they’re interested in themselves.”

Sir Keir also criticised Mr Musk’s support for jailed right-wing activist Tommy Robinson, saying; “Those who are cheerleading Tommy Robinson are not interested in justice. They’re supporting a man who went to prison for nearly collapsing a grooming case, a gang grooming case.

“These are people who are trying to get some vicarious thrill from street violence that people like Tommy Robinson promote.”

The Prime Minister went on to criticise the response of senior Conservatives to Mr Musk’s comments, saying he was “concerned about where the Tory party is going on this”.

He said: “I think only a few months ago, it would have been unthinkable for things to have been said about Jess Phillips [that] were said recently without all political parties and the leader of the opposition calling it out in terms.”

Sir Keir defended his own record on tackling grooming gangs, saying he had dealt with the problem “head-on” as director of public prosecutions.

He said: “I reopened cases that had been closed and supposedly finished, I brought the first major prosecution of an Asian grooming gang – in the particular case it was in Rochdale, but it was the first of its kind, there were many that then followed that format.

“We changed, or I changed, the whole prosecution approach, because I wanted to challenge and did challenge the myths and stereotypes that were stopping those victims being heard.”

He added: “When I left office, we had the highest number of child sexual abuse cases being prosecuted on record. Now that record is not secret. As a public servant, it’s there for all of you, for everybody to see.”

When questioned why the UK government was not ordering a new public inquiry, Sir Keir said: “I changed the system because I could see some of the things that were going wrong.

READ MORE: Tories should beware following Elon Musk’s lead

“The victims suffered terrible abuse and then they weren’t listened to.”

The Prime Minister defended Ms Phillips’s record as safeguarding minister, saying she had “done a thousand times more” for victims than they had “ever dreamt about”.

After Sir Keir’s speech, Mr Musk continued his social media barrage, suggesting the Prime Minister was afraid another inquiry into child sexual abuse would reveal failings from his time as director of public prosecutions.

He said: “Starmer was deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes. That’s what the inquiry would show.”

The row prompted by Mr Musk’s comments has also seen Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch call for a “full national inquiry into the rape gangs scandal” and defend shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick after he tweeted that “importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women” had led to the scandal.

In a post on X responding to criticism of Mr Jenrick, Mrs Badenoch said: “We MUST be free to have tough conversations, no matter how difficult that may be to hear.”

Speaking on Monday, Sir Keir accused the Tories of “amplifying what the far-right is saying” on child sexual abuse after falling to act “for 14 long years”.

He added: “What I won’t tolerate is politicians jumping on the bandwagon, simply to get attention when those politicians sat in government for 14 long years, tweeting, talking, but not doing anything about it. Now, so desperate for attention that they’re amplifying what the far-right is saying.”

But shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Sir Keir’s comments were “disgraceful”, accusing the Prime Minister of “smearing people who are concerned about rape gangs as jumping on a ‘far-right’ bandwagon, rather than facing up to his own record on this and reconsidering his refusal as Prime Minister to hold a full national inquiry”.