London:

A senior British government minister on Friday slammed Elon Musk’s latest meddling in the country’s politics as “misjudged and certainly misinformed”.

The tech billionaire a day earlier 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 suggested Jess Phillips, the minister for preventing violence against women and girls, should be “in jail” for refusing a request for a national public inquiry into the child sex abuse scandal. Deserve to live.” in the northern English town of Oldham.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting told ITV News television that Musk’s comments were widespread and that the government took child sexual abuse “incredibly seriously”.

“Some of the criticism that Elon Musk has made, I think is misjudged and certainly misinformed, but we’re willing to work with Elon Musk, who I think is our and is playing a big role with its social media platform to help other countries deal with this serious problem,” he said.

“So if he wants to work with us and roll up his sleeves, we would welcome that,” he added.

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 fueled controversy.

A series of court cases eventually led to the conviction of dozens of men, most of whom were South Asian Muslims. The victims were vulnerable, mostly white girls.

A series of official inquiries into how police and social workers failed to stop the abuse found that in some cases authorities turned a blind eye to avoid appearing racist.

The scandal has been seized upon by far-right figures, notably Tommy Robinson, a prominent extremist agitator.

Accused of helping to fuel anti-immigration riots last summer, Robinson was jailed in October after pleading guilty to contempt of court in a long-running contempt case involving a Syrian refugee. What did

In an X post on Thursday, Musk claimed that Robinson was in jail “for telling the truth” and “should be released.”

– Swipe on Starmer –

Most of Musk’s messages focused on Robinson highlighting historic scandals involving alleged pedophile grooming gangs in some English cities.

Sharing claims from other accounts of child sex crimes spanning decades, Musk noted that 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,” she posted.

Starmer was head of the CPS during this period, but none of the investigations into the scandals found him guilty or found that he tried to block prosecutions because of concerns about alleged Islamophobia.

Later, in response to another post calling for King Charles III to dissolve Parliament, Musk replied: “Yes!”

He later took another swipe at Starmer, suggesting his government had rejected a requested inquiry “because he is guilty of complicity”.

Weighing in on the row, later on Friday Nigel Farage, a lawmaker and leader of the anti-immigration reform UK party, disagreed with Musk about Robinson.

“They see Robinson as one of those who fought against the grooming gangs. But of course the truth is that Tommy Robinson is not for that, but for contempt of court,” he told right-wing channel GB News. are in jail for the crime.”

He said Robinson himself had encouraged a narrative that he was a “political prisoner … but that’s not true at all”.

Farage added that Musk, who has been approached by his US billionaire about donating to his far-right party, was “very supportive of me, he is very supportive of the party”.

(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

(Tags translated) Elon Musk (T) UK Politics (T) Keir Starmer



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