Keir Starmer Says “Line Has Been Crossed” After Elon Musk’s Attacks On UK Politicians

Keir Starmer made a speech on the NHS in the South East on Monday (Alamy)

3 min read17 min

“Those that spread lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are not interested in victims. They’re interested in themselves,” the Prime Minister said in Surrey on Monday morning.

Starmer was using his speech in the south of England to set out further details of the Government’s plans to cut NHS waiting lists. Labour has promised that 92 per cent of patients in England will wait no longer than 18 months to receive treatment before the next election.

However, questions following the speech were dominated by X owner Musk’s recent online remarks about Home Office Jess Phillips and Starmer’s handling of child exploitation cases when he was leader of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Musk, a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, has criticised the Labour Government relentlessly on his social media website since the party won the General Election in July.

He has expressed support for far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson, founder of the English Defence League, who is serving an 18-month prison sentence for breaching a court order, and called on Nigel Farage to resign as leader of Reform over his refusal to accept Robinson into his party.

Last week, Musk posted that Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley and the safeguarding minister, was a “rape genocide apologist” after she ruled out a new national inquiry into the grooming gang scandal.

The PM launched a robust defence of Phillips, who he said he was “proud to call a colleague and a friend”, in the face of what he described as the “poison of the far-right”.

Starmer said: “Those that spread lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are 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. These are people trying to get some kind of precarious thrill in street violence.

“And those attacking Jess Phillips, who I’m proud to call a colleague and a friend, aren’t protecting victims. Jess Phillips has done 1000 times more than [they have].

He added: “I enjoy the 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.”

Starmer criticised previous Conservative governments for not implementing the Jay report in full, which looked into child exploitation between 1997-2013.

“For 10 years, we’ve had reviews and reports. Did they act? No,” he said, adding that Tory figures like Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch had some “pretty basic” questions to answer for not fully implementing it.

Speaking about the NHS, Starmer said he wanted to “drag care out of the hospital and into the community” to help reduce waiting lists. 

The PM, who was joined by Health Secretary Wes Streeting and NHS Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard, said it was not viable for the health service to be a “national money pit” funded by ever-increasing taxes. 

“We will of course protect the principles we all cherish that you all work to every day, care free at the point of use. Treatment according to need.

“We need an NHS that is reformed from top to bottom. Millions of extra appointments, signed, sealed and delivered,” he said.

The PM also confirmed that Treasury minister Tulip Sidiq had referred herself to Laurie Magnus, the independent adviser on ministerial standards, following reports about properties given to her by people with links to a fallen administration in Bangladesh accused of corruption.

Sidiq is the Treasury minister responsible for tackling financial crime and fraud.

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