Keir Starmer appeared to accuse Elon Musk of “spreading lies” in a lengthy public statement following weeks in which the tech billionaire has criticised his government.
After delivering a speech on reducing NHS waiting lists, the prime minister was asked if he was angry about Musk’s denunciation of Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister.
Last week, Musk said that Phillips “deserves to be in prison” for denying requests for the Home Office to lead a public inquiry into historic child sexual exploitation in Oldham and called her a “rape genocide apologist”.
Starmer responded to Musk’s social media onslaught with the below statement:
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Child sexual exploitation is utterly sickening and for many, many years, too many victims have been completely let down. Let down by perverse ideas about community relations, or by the idea that institutions must be protected above all else, and they’ve not been listened to, and they’ve not been heard.
And when I was chief prosecutor for five years, I tackled that head on, because I could see what was happening, and that’s why I reopened cases that had been closed and supposedly finished. I brought the first major prosecution of an Asian grooming gang. In the particular case, it was in Rochdale, but it was the first of its kind. There were many that then followed that format.
We changed, or I changed, the whole prosecution approach, because I wanted to challenge, and did challenge the myths and stereotypes that were stopping those victims being heard. So we changed the entire approach, not without criticism at the time, I might add.
And when I left office, we had the highest number of child sexual abuse cases being prosecuted on record. Now that record is not secret as a public servant, it’s all there for all of you or everybody to see. I also called for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse. I called for that a decade ago. The Tories did nothing about that for those ten long years, including when the Jay report came out nearly three years ago.
Now, the central plank, mandatory reporting, still hasn’t been done. We’re going to do it, but let’s just to bring it in closer, and I’ll answer you on Jess Phillips in particular, because those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible, they’re not interested in victims. They’re interested in themselves.
Those who are cheerleading Tommy Robinson are not interested in justice. They’re supporting a man who went to prison for nearly collapsing a grooming case, a gang grooming case. These are people trying to get some kind of vicarious thrill from street violence that people like Tommy Robinson promote.
And those attacking Jess Phillips, who I am proud to call a colleague and a friend, are not protecting victims. Jess Phillips has done 1000 times more than they’ve even dreamt about when it comes to protecting victims of sexual abuse throughout her entire career.
And so just as I took on the criminal justice system and the institutions when I was chief prosecutor, I’m prepared to call out this for what it is. We’ve seen this playbook many times, whipping up of intimidation and threats of violence, hoping that the media will amplify it. And Jess Phillips does not need me or anybody else to speak on her behalf, but when the poison of the far right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and others, that in my book, a line has been crossed.
I enjoy the cut and thrust of politics, the robust debate that we must have. But that’s got to be based on facts and truth, not on lies, not on those who are so desperate for attention that they are prepared to debase themselves and their country. So this government will get on with the job of protecting victims, including child sexual abuse, mandatory reporting, accelerating the processes.
But what I won’t tolerate is this discussion and debate based on lies without calling it out. What I won’t tolerate is politicians jumping on the bandwagon simply to get attention, when those politicians sat in government for fourteen long years, tweeting, talking, but not doing anything about it now so desperate for attention that they’re amplifying what the far right is saying. So that’s what I say about Jess Phillips. Thank you.
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