Nigel Farage has refused to condemn Elon Musk for his comments about Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips, saying the prime minister in particular has questions to answer about failures to prosecute people over the rape of young girls.
It came as Wes Streeting gave the most robust government response yet to Musk’s rhetoric, saying the billionaire businessman and Donald Trump confidant was responsible for a “disgraceful smear” about Phillips, the safeguarding minister.
Farage, the Reform UK leader, said Musk, who has called Phillips a “rape genocide apologist” and Starmer “complicit in the rape of Britain”, had brought back free speech on social media since buying Twitter, which he renamed X.
“I don’t agree with everything he stands for,” Farage told BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg. “But I do believe in free speech. I think he’s a hero.”
He added: “Free speech is back. Well, you may find it offensive, but it’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”
Speaking later to the BBC, Streeting, the health secretary, condemned Musk’s comments about Phillips, among a mass of messages on the subject of grooming gangs Musk has sent to his 210 million X followers in recent days.
“It is a disgraceful smear of a great woman who has spent her life supporting victims of the kind of violence that Elon Musk and others say that they’re against,” he said.
Streeting condemned what he called “armchair critics on social media”, contrasting them with people such as Starmer and Phillips, who “have done the hard yards of actually locking up wife beaters, rapists, paedophiles”.
Asked about Musk, Streeting said: “If he wants to roll his sleeves up and actually do something about tackling violence against women and girls, then online platforms, whether X or any of the other platforms, have got a role to play in keeping people safe online, helping law enforcement clamp down on perpetrators of violence against women and girls, and people who want to groom kids online.”
Farage, speaking after he addressed supporters at Reform’s east of England conference in Chelmsford on Saturday, described Musk’s language as “very, very tough terms”, but indicated it would only be seen as unacceptable if it was deemed to be inciting violence.
“You know, in public life, tough things get said,” he said. “Those on the left have thrown these sort of jabs at the right for many, many decades and will go on doing so.”
Farage said he believed Musk had justification in calling Starmer complicit in the failures to swiftly prosecute gangs who targeted vulnerable young girls in a series of UK towns and cities because of the prime minister’s role as director of public prosecutions before he became a politician.
“What he’s referring to, specifically, is that in 2008 Keir Starmer had just been appointed as director of public prosecutions, and there was a case brought…
Read More: Farage refuses to condemn free speech ‘hero’ Musk’s remarks on Jess
