London:
A senior British government official on Friday criticized Elon Musk’s recent interference in the country’s politics, saying he was “misjudged and definitely misinformed”.
A day earlier, the tech billionaire 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 X platform, Musk also said that Jess Phillips, the minister for the prevention of violence against women and girls, “deserves to be jailed” for refusing to call for a national public inquiry into the child sexual exploitation scandal. suggested. It is located in Oldham, a city in northern England.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting told ITV News television that Mr Musk’s comments were wide of the mark and that the government takes child sexual exploitation “incredibly seriously”.
“We are happy to work with Elon Musk, even though we believe some of the criticisms he has made are misjudged and certainly misinformed. “We believe Mr. Musk has a huge role to play on social media platforms to help us and others. Countries need to address this serious issue.”
“So if he wants to work with us and roll up his sleeves, we welcome that,” he added.
The widespread abuse of young girls, which was uncovered more than a decade ago in a number of British towns and cities including Rochdale, Rotherham and Oldham, has long been controversial.
A series of trials ultimately resulted in the conviction of dozens of men, mostly of South Asian Muslim origin. The victims were vulnerable, most of them white girls.
A series of official inquiries into how police and social workers failed to stop abuse found cases in which authorities turned a blind eye to avoid appearing racist. It turned out that there was.
The scandal was seized upon by far-right figures, particularly Tommy Robinson, a prominent extremist agitator.
Robinson was charged last summer with inciting anti-immigrant violence and was jailed in October after pleading guilty to contempt of court in a long-running defamation case involving Syrian refugees.
In one of his X posts on Thursday, Musk claimed that Robinson was imprisoned “for telling the truth” and “should be released.”
– Swipe towards Starmer –
Much of Musk’s message focused on Robinson’s long history of highlighting historic scandals involving suspected pedophile grooming gangs in some British cities.
Musk shared claims from various other accounts of child sex crimes spanning decades, and noted that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will decide whether to prosecute suspects.
He posted: “Who was the head of the CPS when rape gangs were allowed to exploit young girls without facing justice? Keir Starmer, 2008-2013.”
Mr Starmer was CPS chief at the time, but he was not accused in the investigation into the scandal, nor was it found that he had tried to prevent prosecutions over concerns about Islamophobia.
Later, in response to another post asking King Charles III to dissolve parliament, Mr Musk replied: “Yes!”
He then again slammed Mr Starmer, suggesting the government had refused the requested inquiry because he was “committed to collusion”.
Later on Friday, Nigel Farage, an MP and leader of the anti-immigrant Reform UK Party, echoed the uproar and disagreed with Musk about Mr Robinson.
“He considers Robinson to be one of those who fought against grooming gangs. But of course the truth is that Tommy Robinson was jailed for contempt of court, not for that,” he told right-wing channel GB News. spoke.
Robinson himself promoted the theory that he was “a political prisoner…but that’s not entirely true.”
Mr Farage said he had spoken to Mr Musk about the US billionaire’s donations to his far-right party, adding: “He is very supportive of me and he is very supportive of the party.” ” he added.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
