When Elon Musk asked his 211 million followers on
But after a barrage of strident messages about Britain from Mr Musk – attacking Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer; demanding the release of a jailed far-right agitator; and breaking with a far-right leader, Nigel Farage – it came across less as a joke than as one from a powerful man who relished his ability to stir the politics of another country.
Musk's posts, which appeared on X throughout the holidays like unwanted guests at a Christmas party, thoroughly hijacked the political debate in Britain in early 2025.
On Monday, Mr Starmer used a press conference on the creation of Britain's National Health Service to deny Mr Musk's accusations that when he was Britain's chief prosecutor more than a decade ago he failed to act against gangs sexually abused girls.
Mr Farage in turn faced questions about his future as leader of the right-wing anti-immigration party Reform UK, after Mr Musk declared on X on Sunday that “Farage doesn't have what it takes.” A day later, Mr Farage issued a call for a national inquiry into child sex abuse cases, tapping into one of Mr Musk's favorite causes.
“Musk has a very distorted view of British politics, and yet he has a megaphone,” said Robert Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester. “If he says things like this at 3 o'clock on a Sunday evening it will disrupt Labour's entire NHS press conference on Monday.”
The long-term effect of Musk's erratic crusade was harder to predict, Professor Ford said, but some of his actions could backfire. His break with Mr Farage, for example, could work out in Mr Farage's favour.
The likely cause of the split was Mr Farage's refusal to support Mr Musk's demand for the release of far-right agitator Tommy Robinson. Mr Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is serving a prison sentence for defying a court order by repeating defamation against a young Syrian refugee. He has multiple criminal convictions and a record of racist and Islamophobic statements.
In Britain, Professor Ford said: 'Tommy Robinson is political kryptonite. There's a reason Farage doesn't want anything to do with him, and he never has.”
By rejecting Mr Robinson in defiance of Mr Musk, he said, Mr Farage could make himself more palatable to mainstream voters on the right who are disenchanted with the Conservatives. Mr Musk, he added, will also find that there are no clear party leader alternatives to Mr Farage, an architect of Brexit and a fixture in right-wing British politics for decades who led Reform UK during the election campaign of last year.
For Mr Starmer, returning from a rare holiday that had to be postponed due to the death of his brother, Mr Musk's intervention was another setback after a failed start to his young government. With his personal ratings plummeting in the polls, Mr Starmer hoped to start rolling out a plan to cut patient waiting times on the NHS in 2025.
Instead, reporters asked him about Mr Musk, who had falsely claimed that Mr Starmer had covered up the abuse and exploitation of girls in the 2000s and 2010s by gang members, many of whom were of British Pakistani descent . “Prison for Starmer,” Musk wrote in a message Monday morning.
“It probably irritated him beyond words that he had to deal with this kind of thing,” says Steven Fielding, emeritus professor of political history at the University of Nottingham. The prime minister, he said, was trying to avoid a “street fight” with Mr Musk and focus on governing.
Mr Starmer noted that when he was director of the Crown Prosecution Service between 2008 and 2013, his office brought the first of several cases against a 'grooming gang' and established guidelines for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse. He had tackled the scandal “head-on,” he said.
The Prime Minister became visibly angry as he defended Jess Phillips, a minister for the protection and violence against women and girls, against Mr Musk's accusation that she was a “rape genocide apologist” for pushing back on calls for a national inquiry to child sexual abuse. operation in Oldham, a town near Manchester.
Ms Phillips had instead called for an investigation by Oldham authorities rather than central government. Mr Starmer said she had done “a thousand times more than even dreamed of when it comes to protecting victims of sexual abuse.”
Elizabeth Pearson, the author of a book about Britain's far right, “Extreme Britain,” said Mr. Robinson, who was convicted of assault and fraud, was fortunate “to attract the attention of one of the most powerful people in the world.” West'. .”
She and other analysts are more puzzled by what Mr Musk could gain by backing a maligned figure who has occupied the sometimes violent margins of British politics. The number of daily users of X in Britain has declined since Mr Musk took over the platform formerly known as Twitter; Experts say championing Mr. Robinson's case is unlikely to reverse this trend.
“It's foreign interference in our system,” says Dr. Pearson, Senior Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London. “Right now I feel like Musk is becoming a bad actor who wants to destabilize our system.”
Professor Fielding said Musk probably wanted to cater to his audience in the United States. The risk, he said, was that “anyone who is serious in the American government will think this guy is starting fires that are absolutely unnecessary.”
Mr Musk's activism has raised alarm in other European countries such as Germany, where he supported a far-right party with neo-Nazi ties. On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron of France told a diplomatic audience: “Who would have thought ten years ago that the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support a new international reactionary movement.” He did not mention Mr Musk by name.
Similarly, Mr. Starmer showed no willingness to single out Mr. Musk, a close ally of newly elected President Donald J. Trump, with whom Mr. Starmer and his aides have tried to build relationships. “This is not about America or Musk,” he told a reporter on Monday. “I'm talking about our politics.”
