A senior British government minister on Friday criticized Elon Musk’s latest interference in the country’s politics, calling it “misjudged and certainly misinformed.”
The tech billionaire came a day after he accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer of failing to bring “rape gangs” to justice when he was director of public prosecutions.
In a series of posts on his deserve”. In the northern English city of Oldham.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting told ITV News television that Musk’s comments were wide-ranging and that the government took child sexual abuse “incredibly seriously”.
“Some of the criticisms that Elon Musk has made, I think they’re misjudged and certainly misinformed, but we’re willing to work with Elon Musk, who I think They have a bigger role to play with their social media platforms to help us and others.” Countries have to deal with this serious issue,” he said.
“So if he wants to work with us and roll up his sleeve, we would welcome that,” he said.
The widespread abuse of girls in several English towns and cities, including Rochdale, Rotherham and Oldham, which came to light more than a decade ago, has long been controversial.
A series of court cases eventually led to the conviction of dozens of people, most of whom were of South Asian Muslim origin. The victims were vulnerable, mostly white girls.
A series of official investigations into how police and social workers failed to stop the abuse found that in some cases officers turned a blind eye to avoid appearing racist.
The scandals have been captured by figures on the far-right, notably Tommy Robinson, a prominent far-right agitator.
Robinson, accused of helping to instigate anti-immigration riots last summer, was jailed in October after he admitted contempt of court in a long-running defamation case involving a Syrian refugee Was.
In an X post on Thursday, Musk claimed that Robinson was in jail “for speaking the truth” and “should be freed”.
– Swipe on Starmer –
Much of Musk’s message focused on Robinson’s long-running expose of historic scandals involving alleged pedophile grooming gangs in some English cities.
Sharing claims from various other accounts about child sex crimes going on for decades, Musk said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decides whether to charge suspects.
“Who was head of the CPS when rape gangs were allowed to exploit young girls without facing justice? Keir Starmer, 2008-2013,” he posted.
Starmer was head of the CPS during that period, but none of the investigations into the scandals convicted him or found that he tried to prevent a prosecution due to concerns over alleged Islamophobia.
Later, in response to another post calling for King Charles III to dissolve Parliament, Musk replied: “Yes!”
He later took another dig at Starmer, suggesting that his government had rejected the requested investigation “because he is guilty of collusion”.
Adding to the controversy, later on Friday Nigel Farage, MP and leader of the anti-immigration reform UK party, disagreed with Musk about Robinson.
“He sees Robinson as one of the people who fought against grooming gangs,” he told the right-wing channel GB News. “But of course the truth is that Tommy Robinson is not in prison, but in court. Is for contempt.”
Robinson himself had promoted a story that he was a “political prisoner… but that’s simply not true”, he said.
Faraz said Musk, with whom he has spoken about the American billionaire donating to his far-right party, has been “very supportive of me, he is very supportive of the party”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
