The confrontation with Musk requires a new stance from Starmer

Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, is rising to prominence in UK politics, and the establishment can’t stop him

To understand Musk’s impact, let’s look at a politician from another era: Enoch Powell, essentially the grandfather of all right-wing British populists. In 1968, the Conservative politician, one of the most talented orators in the House of Commons of his time, tried to take the leadership of his party by giving a series of fiery speeches about non-white immigration. He was ostracized by the political class, became a hated figure on television, and was condemned by mainstream newspaper commentators—although, alarmed by the popularity of his message, both parties pumped the brakes on migration. Powell acknowledged that “for a politician to complain about the press is like the captain of a ship complaining about the sea.”

Today, the traditional press has largely been replaced by social media, and Musk is both an expert and owner of one of its most significant platforms, X. Political news, commentary and heated debates are conducted in real time and without the filter of social media. former media barons and their hierarchies.

In recent weeks, the tech mogul has made scandalous accusations against UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Labor Party colleagues, to the dismay of liberal commentators.

Musk tweeted to his 211 million followers that “evil” Labor ministers should be put on trial for failing to conduct an official investigation into the gangs of British men, mostly of Pakistani or Asian origin, who raped and terrorized young white working-class women in English cities.

The Labor Party argues that Jay’s investigation, which lasted seven years and concluded in 2022, fulfilled this role.

Lamenting or expressing shock is a tempting response for the Labor Party and its allies’ default mode. That won’t do any good; indignation is the currency of social media.

Britain’s old political parties must learn to adapt or they will end up irrelevant — the fate that befell the Gaullists and moderate socialists in France and the Christian Democrats in Italy, overtaken by populists of the right and left.

Parliamentarians must avoid demagoguery, but Westminster cannot ignore issues that mobilize the majority of voters.

Suggesting that the new Labor government, elected in July, would tighten controls on social media is what first alerted Musk to a threat to X’s fifth-largest market. His platform led the way in ditching fact-checkers and moderators (an approach now copied in the US by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms Inc.).

Musk, apparently obsessed with the land of his paternal grandparents, has since upped the ante. He accuses Starmer of operating a “two-tier” policing system that favors non-whites and has proclaimed Tommy Robinson, a lawbreaker who once led the far-right English Defense League, as a free speech hero.

UK Prime Minister risks looking like a dinosaur in the age of social media

Starmer’s statement that “I think most people are more interested in what’s going to happen to the NHS, frankly, than what’s happening on Twitter” suggests he is a dinosaur in the digital age.

Although the UK suffers from a glut of expensive and time-wasting investigations, Starmer would have been better off responding to the online storm by offering a third alternative rather than giving a straight negative response.

The Jay investigation devoted little attention to the rape gang scandal; The government could simply commission a rapid follow-up report addressing the police forces and social services that ignored the desperate plight of the girls, some of whom were dismissed as criminals.

Reform UK, Britain’s right-wing populist party, immediately heeded Musk’s call for an investigation, only for its leader, Nigel Farage, to fall out with his billionaire friend by refusing to support Robinson — British voters don’t accept parties that team up to criminals. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and her former rival, Shadow Justice Minister Robert Jenrick, picked up the baton next. The Labor Party accuses its opponents of playing with fire.

Neither Badenoch nor Jenrick had shown much curiosity about rape gangs before Musk’s intervention. Successive Conservative governments have had 14 years to connect the dots between these terrible crimes; they failed to act.

Still, it is the role of the official opposition to oppose, and Badenoch, 45, is a natural and frequent performer on the X platform, who has risen to the top of the Conservative Party by taking on “woke” issues. She is unlikely to stop now, as she sees a threat emerging to her right from the Reformation. The party in power does not get a free pass either. The crimes were predominantly committed in districts controlled by the Labor Party or its councils; the silence of its parliamentarians has been resounding over the years.

Amid miscalculations and self-serving policies, it turned a blind eye to horrific abuse of girls. We should be more surprised that the issue was swept under the rug than that it returned with a vengeance.

Musk is here to stay, as is the populism promoted by social media — simply because there is an appetite for it. Musk has the attention of more voters than previous media barons ever did, without the complex economic constraints of publishing that would limit his scale and reach.

Musk can certainly be a malign force, spreading untruths, but Starmer can’t pretend he doesn’t exist or that his brand of high-octane political intervention will disappear. It won’t. The seas, as Powell put it, became rougher; a new generation of politicians must learn to navigate them.

By Martin Evens for Bloomberg*