Elon Musk repeatedly asserts, without evidence, that the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, covered up the abuses of young girls by gangs composed largely of British Pakistani men, in cases that date back to before 2010 when Starmer was head of Britain’s public prosecutions.

“Starmer was complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN when he was head of Crown Prosecution for 6 years,” Musk posted to the top of his account on Friday. “Starmer must go and he must face charges for his complicity in the worst mass crime in the history of Britain.”

In fact, Starmer, who heads the Labour government, did not cover up abuses. Instead, he brought the first case against an Asian grooming gang and drafted new guidelines for how the Crown Prosecution Service should deal with cases of sexual exploitation of children, including the mandatory reporting of child sex offenses.

Musk also calls Jess Phillips, the Labour government’s minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, a “rape genocide apologist” because she pushed back on calls for a national inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham, a town near Manchester.

In fact, Phillips, who has long campaigned for women’s rights, has called for a local investigation by Oldham authorities rather than the central government. Women’s rights supporters say Musk’s labeling Phillips a “rape genocide apologist” is threatening her safety.

On Monday, Starmer warned publicly that Musk’s baseless accusations “crossed a line”, adding: “Once we lose the anchor that truth matters, in the robust debate that we must have, then we are on a very slippery slope.”

Musk’s lies about the leftwing British government and his support for far-right groups are parts of an emerging pattern. Musk is also:

Boosting the far-right party in Germany with neo-Nazi ties, known as Alternative for Germany (AfD), before elections early next month. Musk signaled his support for AfD in mid-December,

© The Guardian