David Lammy has accused Elon Musk of “peddling mistruths” following his attacks on Labour’s approach to the grooming gangs scandal.
The foreign secretary urged the world’s richest man to “focus on the facts” when using X, the social media platform he owns, to intervene on the row.
Musk accused safeguarding minister Jess Phillips of being a “rape genocide apologist” who should be in jail, and also attacked Keir Starmer’s record as head of the Crown Prosecution Service.
His outspoken comments shot the issue up the political agenda, culminating in MPs last night rejecting a Tory call for a national inquiry into grooming gangs targeting vulnerable young girls in dozens of towns across England.
The government has said a new probe is not needed while they implement the recommendations of Professor Alexis Jay’s inquiry into child sexual abuse, which reported in 2022.
On BBC Breakfast this morning, Lammy said: “There has been a debate prompted by Elon Musk, of course, this week, and I think the prime minister was right earlier in the week to call to mind the facts, the truth and to call out those who are putting forward mistruths in this area.”
Asked by presenter Naga Munchetty what he would personally say to Musk, Lammy said: “I insist that we focus on the truth, we focus on the facts.
“I recognise that there is a heated debate about free speech, and Elon Musk is at one end of that debate. But to have free speech, it must be based on facts and on truth.
“And some of what we’ve seen online is peddling mistruth, is creating bad faith, is very unfair to those victims, and I pray in aid the words of Alexis Jay in the last few days, which concentrates the minds on her recommendations, on the victims that sit behind this, and getting on with implementing her inquiry.”
