It’s been a rough few weeks for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, regarding the lurking controversy of the ‘grooming gangs scandal’, a point of contention that has even more so deepened the political division of right and left wing in Britain. However, an unexpected branch of this controversy has proved to be the involvement of Tesla billionaire Elon Musk in denouncing Starmer, MP Jess Phillips and the Labour party; a man who has recently entrenched himself in both the UK and the US political sphere and forged a commonality between the two- to add to the historic relationship of political influence and partnership between the two Western strongholds. Though the appearance of Musk in the British political arena initially seems rogue, it rings clearer when the financial and political power potential of his involvement is considered. All parties benefit: a politician being backed by, as Forbes clarifies, one of the world’s richest men, bolsters their influence to an enviable degree. And Musk’s platform, in turn, is amplified. Where this is an issue, however, is how his amplified platform has given a loudspeaker to the discriminatory rhetoric peddled simultaneously by the Reform party and Trump’s Republican administration; and how both parties have been able to utilise Musk as a tool for said rhetoric.
Musk’s endorsement and support of figures such as Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK party, and Tommy Robinson, former EDL leader, has been vital in enhancing the right wing rhetoric of anti-immigration and anti-Labour sentiment that has already been brewing in the UK, especially in the wake of continual concerns over recent Labour actions such as MP Rachel Reeves’ budget and the increase in university tuition fees, as well as the ‘elephant in the room’- the grooming gang scandal being brought to light. In early January of this year, it was reported that there had been a degree of obscurity in regards to the accusation and prosecution of sex trafficking rings in Northern cities such as Telford, Rochdale and Oldham, over fears of appearing racist or prejudiced in these prosecutions (perpetrators were overwhelmingly British Pakistani men; victims were largely white, working class girls). Namely, MP Jess Phillips and PM Keir Starmer were under fire for their involvement, with the former being accused of closing the 2022 Oldham inquiry into the matter and not serving adequate justice to the victims of sexual offences; the latter, for being director of public prosecution from 2008 to 2013, and so supposedly held responsibility for the lack of justice served to these same victims. The presence and harm caused by such sex trafficking rings and the fears of police racism were first unearthed on an investigative scale in 2011, through an article written by Andrew Norfolk on the Rotherham area. The article contained a statement from police staff, one of whom claimed that ‘everyone’s been too scared to address the ethnicity factor’: with the Labour domination of the Rotherham constituency tying the party directly to holding a degree of responsibility in this lack of prosecution.
This controversy is where Musk’s involvement became public, denouncing MP Phillips as a ‘rape genocide apologist’ and Starmer ‘complicit in the rape of Britain’. The popularity and sense of identification with his words was soon clear: a poll posted to his X page on the 6th of January, on whether ‘America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government’, gained 58% of the votes in favour of the answer ‘yes’. Therefore, a link between the US and the UK in regards to the current English political climate was cemented.
Musk’s support of Farage and the Reform party, a party built upon its anti-immigrant ethos, further clarifies Musk’s own views and coordinates them with his involvement in the Republican party and current proximity to Trump: furthermore, Musk’s online support of former EDL leader Tommy Robinson solidifies his own rhetoric as that of anti-immigrant racism, exemplified by his making demands for Robinson’s release and his reinstatement of Robinson’s 2018 banned Twitter page (which was banned for violations of Twitter’s hate speech policy).
This link being forged during a time of such political divide holds a significant sense of foreboding. We may be in one of the most politically divided states that has been seen for a number of decades, in a climate that feels like a bubbling pot waiting to spill over, and myriad factors contribute to the extremity of political division being felt: post-Covid economic hardship being the main one. Times of economic hardship have historically radicalised many, or at least pushed them further across the political spectrum: most traditionally, to a greater sense of conservatism. Therefore, there seems to be heightened sympathy and susceptibility to the rhetoric of figures such as Musk, Farage, Trump, and the like, who are provided a fertile environment of general social discontent to unleash their anti-immigration ethos. Therefore, they create a ‘common enemy’ for the people to rally against, blaming immigration for issues such as high taxation, benefit ‘scrounging’, housing and healthcare service shortages, and lack of jobs. The rhetoric remains the same both within the UK and the US governments, regardless of if Musk forges a link between the two: and so, those who disagree with these views cannot sit back on their haunches and be glad that Britain isn’t being subjected to the extreme-appearing policies being currently implemented by the Trump administration. The political relationship between the countries is not only currently one of strength, but has historically been symbiotic: through wartime alliances to covert agreements, the American political climate is echoed in England. With this, therefore, those in the UK who don’t identify with right wing racist rhetoric cannot view these proposals (such as Trump’s plan to keep up to 30,000 ‘illegal aliens’ in a ‘mass holding facility’ on Guantanamo Bay, that demonise and dehumanise immigrants and threaten the lives and safety of many) as exclusively an American issue. Really, it’s only a matter of time- and so, this complacency is misjudged.