Keir Starmer hits back at Elon Musk saying he tackled grooming gangs ‘head on’ as chief prosecutor – as he vows to fight ‘poison of far right’

Keir Starmer hit back at Elon Musk today in the increasingly bitter row over his record of grooming gang cases.

The Prime Minister put up a robust defense as he answered questions after laying out the NHS waiting list plans this morning.

Sir Keir said “child sexual exploitation is completely sickening” and that victims have been “let down”, but insisted he had tackled the issues “head-on” as director of public prosecutions.

The Prime Minister accused opposition politicians of ‘reinforcing what the far right says’ after deciding to take action for ‘fourteen years’.

He insisted he would fight the extremists’ “poison”, arguing that those who “spread lies and disinformation… are not interested in victims, but in themselves.”

Sir Keir did not mention Mr Musk by name and said he had “no real comment” on the billionaire asking followers on his social media site X whether the US should “liberate” Britain from its “tyrannical government”.

“I think most people are more interested in the NHS… than what’s happening on Twitter,” he said.

Sir Keir said he was making a “general point” and did not want to “individualise” the row with Musk. He suggested that until recently the Tories had ‘called out’ attacks on Home Secretary Jess Phillips, saying a ‘line had been crossed’ and she had been threatened.

The Tesla and Space

Musk has claimed that the Prime Minister was “complicit” in allowing the gangs’ activities to continue unchecked.

This morning he posted on his social media site X that Sir Keir should be in ‘jail’.

Speaking in Surrey, the Prime Minister said he was responsible for authorizing the first prosecution of an Asian gang and had changed the CPS’s “entire approach”.

He emphasized that his record in the role was “not secret” and that everything was public.

Sir Keir added: ‘Jess Phillips does not need me or anyone else to speak on her behalf, but when the poison from the far right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and others then in my view a line has been crossed.

‘I enjoy the sharpness and power of politics, the robust debate we need to have, but it must be based on facts and truth, not on lies, not on those who are so desperate for attention that they are willing to degrade themselves and their country.

“So this administration will continue to protect victims, including child sexual abuse, mandatory reporting, and speeding up the processes. But what I will not tolerate is this discussion, a debate based on lies without bringing it up.

‘What I will not tolerate is politicians jumping on the bandwagon just to get attention, while those politicians have spent fourteen long years in government, tweeting, talking, but doing nothing about it. Now they are so desperate for attention that they amplify what the far right says.’

Sir Keir has faced questions in recent days over a 2009 decision by the Crown Prosecution Service to drop a major case against an alleged ‘grooming’ gang in Rochdale.

The chair of a previous inquiry that revealed extensive failings in the way institutions protected children has said she is not seeking a new inquiry, but urged ministers to follow up on the recommendations of her final report of more than two years ago.

‘Our mission is not to call for new investigations, but to advocate for the full implementation of the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse. A child protection authority is crucial to this process,” says Professor Alexis Jay.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday yesterday, Kemi Badenoch said an inquiry “must identify the agencies that failed, as well as the individuals who facilitated or ignored these crimes, so that they can be removed from their roles.”

Nigel Farage also backed an investigation – and said it was fair for Musk to question what role, if any, Sir Keir had in the decision not to pursue serious allegations in Rochdale in 2009.

Advocates point out that when the DPP deployed a national network of specialist child abuse and sexual exploitation prosecutors to oversee convictions against ‘grooming gangs’, Sir Keir changed Crown Prosecution Service guidelines to focus on the credibility of accusations instead of whether victims would be good witnesses.

Mr Musk also posted a message on lead to child sexual exploitation in Oldham, calling her a ‘rape genocide apologist’. ‘.

Health Minister Wes Streeting yesterday called Musk’s attacks on Ms Phillips a “disgraceful smear”.

She and the Prime Minister have a “real record of beating up rapists, pedophiles and sex offenders, so they don’t need lectures from anyone else,” he said.

Social media platforms can help curb those who groom children online if Musk wants to “roll up his sleeves and actually do something to address violence against women and girls,” he said.

The Tesla and Space

Labor is now facing calls for a new national inquiry from Reform UK and the Conservatives, the latter of which had rejected a request for a public inquiry into the events in Oldham during his time in government.

Sir Keir’s government is against launching another national inquiry and has said it is working to implement the recommendations from Professor Jay’s inquiry, which was completed in 2022.

That study looked at abuse by organized groups following multiple convictions for sex crimes against children in the UK between 2010 and 2014, including in Rotherham, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Rochdale and Bristol.