UK prime minister Keir Starmer has said the online debate about child sexual exploitation was based on lies, with politicians “jumping on the bandwagon”.
Responding to questions about a slew of social media posts from Tesla owner Elon Musk, Mr Starmer 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”.
Mr Starmer’s comments follow a flurry of posts by Mr Musk on his social media site, X, in which the billionaire claimed Ms Phillips “deserves to be in prison” for denying requests for the UK Home Office to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham, Greater Manchester, and called her a “rape genocide apologist”.
Earlier on Monday, Mr Musk suggested the British prime minister was “complicit in the crimes” of child sex offenders, and in a separate post added: “Prison for Starmer.”
He also accused former UK prime minister Gordon Brown of having “committed an unforgivable crime against the British people” and “sold those little girls for votes”, over his handling of grooming gangs while in office.
Asked about Mr Musk’s posts to his 210 million followers following a speech at Epsom Hospital in England, Mr Starmer said: “Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are not interested in victims, they are interested in themselves.”
He 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.”
Mr Starmer also defended his own record on tackling grooming gangs, saying he had dealt with the problem “head-on” as director of public prosecutions.
Watch live: Prime Minister Keir Starmer announces the government’s plan to end waiting list backlogs https://t.co/6URyGN7ofB
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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.
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.”
Meanwhile, Professor Alexis Jay, who chaired the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, called for the “full implementation” of her report’s recommendations.
Distancing herself from calls in Westminster for a new independent review, she said instead that the introduction of measures which she recommended two years ago was “critical”.
