Keir Starmer must keep his cool – it won’t be long before Musk slips

KTheir Starmer should be very scared. Some of the most toxic forces in British politics are being stoked and amplified by Elon Musk, who has the power of the old media barons – with even less responsibility.

The tweet pinned to Musk’s X account this morning read: “Free Tommy Robinson!” It remains at the top of his page while below it describes Starmer as the “head of the Crown Prosecution Service when rapist gangs were allowed to exploit young girls without facing justice”; and calls for Jess Phillips, the Minister for Protection, to be jailed.

This is a dangerous thing, reinforcing anti-democratic conspiracy theories based on myths rather than facts.

Robinson – real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – is in prison because he admitted contempt of court by repeating false allegations that a teenage Syrian refugee violently attacked his classmates. Yet Yaxley-Lennon’s small group of supporters – which now includes Musk – insist that he is a political prisoner, imprisoned for exercising his right to free speech.

Similarly, several gangs of rapists were brought to justice while Starmer was head of the CPS. Although Starmer himself admitted that some cases were not prosecuted due to a “lack of understanding” of the victims’ credibility, there is no evidence that he was involved in any decision to prosecute. do not initiate proceedings. On the contrary, it introduced new guidelines on prosecuting cases of sexual exploitation of children to prevent the mistakes of the past from being repeated.

Starmer also appointed Nazir Afzal to review previous decisions – he overturned a 2009 decision and nine men were convicted. Afzal said: “The only way to press charges was to admit that we failed these victims when they first filed a complaint in 2008. Keir was 100% behind the decision to publicly admit that we we were deceived in the matter. pass.”

This is the kernel of truth on which conspiracy theorists base their argument. Many child victims of sexual exploitation by Muslim men have undoubtedly been failed by the justice system – but Starmer was one of many civil servants who worked to address these failures.

Instead of trying to understand a complex subject, Musk bought into the paranoid narrative of the British state being afraid to protect its underage citizens for fear of being accused of “Islamophobia.”

And he reinforces it with the irrationalist memes of the anti-political right. The latest issue is the call for a public inquiry into rapist gangs, which Phillips, the minister responsible, has rejected for the fairly obvious reason that there has already been an inquiry into child sexual abuse, chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, who reported on two years ago.

This request was echoed by GB News, another new element in the media ecosystem. It was a comment from Liz Truss on a GB News report on Phillips that prompted Musk to respond: “She deserves to be in prison.” »

This is a standard theme of extreme social media language and was echoed by Donald Trump with his “Lock her up” slogan during the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton. Nor is it an exclusively right-wing trend: it is now completely normal for people who disagree with Tony Blair’s foreign policy to call him a “war criminal” and say that he should be in prison.

Musk also returns to more recent themes, such as refusing to accept the results of democratic elections. Yesterday he posted: “New elections should be called in Britain. »

Fortunately, most British voters will be unhappy about this interference in their own affairs – unless they have been completely dragged into conspiracy hell where no common facts are accepted. This is why Truss’s denial of reality is so alarming.

Musk’s support for Nigel Farage – yesterday he posted: “Vote for reform. It’s the only hope” – this could well prove counterproductive for the Reformation. Farage tried to keep the Reform Party respectable, saying he wanted “nothing to do with Tommy Robinson” and “all that”.

But what should Starmer do in response to the vicious campaign against him, based on half-truths and paranoid myths, which will find fertile ground on the fringes of anti-immigration sentiment? Almost nothing, other than a calm, factual rebuttal. Musk and Farage will fall out in due time, just as Musk and Trump are unlikely to work together by the end of 2025. The egos involved are too big and the common interest too small to last.

Starmer should be worried about Musk using his social media platform to try to destabilize him – but he should keep his cool.