The report that piqued Musk’s interest earlier this week claimed that Safeguarding Minister Jess Philips had rejected a request from a council for a government-led inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham, a town near Manchester. in the north of England which was one of the areas where allegations of abuse by grooming gangs were made.
While Musk and his allies claim this is part of a broader government cover-up, Phillips actually wrote in a letter that “it was solely up to Oldham Council to decide to commission an investigation into child sexual exploitation at a local level, rather than “Let the government intervene.” .” The previous Conservative-led government similarly rejected Oldham’s calls for a government-led inquiry in 2022.
Musk called for Phillips to be jailed and called her “an apologist for rape genocide.” Both Musk and Phillips did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
Musk is also using the report to call, once again, for Starmer’s removal as prime minister.
“Starmer was complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN when he was head of the Crown Prosecution Service for 6 years,” Musk wrote on X on Friday morning, in a post that is now pinned to the top of his timeline . “Starmer must go and must face charges for his complicity in the worst mass crime in Britain’s history.”
Starmer, in his role as Director of Public Prosecutions more than a decade ago, actually initiated the prosecution of a grooming gang in Rochdale and introduced new rules aimed at allowing sexual abuse cases to be prosecuted.
Starmer and the UK government press office did not respond for comment, but health secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC that Musk’s comments were “misjudged and certainly misinformed.”
Musk has also drawn several right-wing American figures into the conversation, including accounts such as Chaya Raichik, who runs the virulently anti-LGBTQ LibsofTikTok account, anti-transgender activist Riley Gaines, right-wing commentator Ian Miles Cheong, and former fallen misfortune. National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
US Senator Mike Lee also weighed in, writing of X: “Is it necessary to liberate the United Kingdom?”
“Yes,” Musk responded.
Bill Ackman, a hedge fund manager and Trump supporter, repeated Musk’s narrative almost word for word in a post on X. He then asked whether the president-elect would “consider appropriate sanctions against the UK until these concerns are addressed.”
In a Friday morning post, Musk pushed a call for King Charles to dissolve the UK parliament and order a general election. Although in the United Kingdom the monarch dissolves parliament before a general election, he only does so at the request of the prime minister and the monarch’s power is, in effect, nothing more than a rubber stamp.