Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s increasing influence in the United States as a key ally of incoming President Donald Trump and around the world has stoked concerns among far-right figures in the United Kingdom.
And they’re not keeping their unease to themselves.
Warnings from far-right British politicians poured in Thursday after Musk posted a flood of messages on his X platform calling for the release from prison of far-right activist Tommy Robinson, who is known as a prominent far-right agitator in Britain, Bloomberg reported Friday.
For Musk, the world’s richest man, it was the latest example of his stepping into international politics, but for far-right Britains, it crossed the line.
“Several prominent Brexit-supporting politicians with links to Trump spent Thursday warning their Republican counterparts against following Musk’s endorsement of Robinson, saying it was a step too far,” according to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the views of both the Conservative and Reform UK parties, who were granted anonymity.
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Reform leader Nigel Farage, who has distanced himself from Robinson, would not benefit from being associated with Robinson, the British politicians told their counterparts in the United States, according to the report. Robinson is serving jail time after pleading guilty to contempt of court breaches last year.
“The outreach by British politicians to their US counterparts was triggered by the latest foray by Musk into British politics,” according to the report. “Since Prime Minister Keir Starmer won the UK general election last July, the close Trump adviser has regularly criticized the new Labour government, called for a new election and urged Britons to back Reform.”
But Musk isn’t just becoming “a headache for Starmer.”
Musk also this week sent out a series of posts about a British child sex abuse scandal, and while some on the British right were “sympathetic” to many of his opinions on the scandal and other criticisms of the Labour government in general, “endorsing Robinson was beyond the pale, one of the people involved in the outreach effort said,” according to Bloomberg.
