Elon Musk’s attack on Jess Phillips over her response to grooming gangs in the UK is a “disgraceful smear”, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said.
Tech multi-billionaire Musk posted messages on his social media site X saying the safeguarding minister should be jailed and calling her a “rape genocide apologist”, as well as criticising Sir Keir Starmer for failing to prosecute gangs.
It came after Phillips rejected a request for the government to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham – which sparked calls from the Conservatives and Reform UK for a national inquiry into grooming gangs.
Streeting told the BBC Musk’s comments were “ill-judged” as Phillips had “done more than most people ever do” to fight sexual abuse.
On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Streeting said: “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.
“It’s all very easy to sit there and fire off something in haste and click send when people like Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips have done the hard yards of actually locking up wife beaters, rapists and paedophiles.”
Musk’s latest intervention came after Phillips instructed Oldham Council in October to launch its own local inquiry into historic child sexual abuse in the town, similar to inquiries set up in Rochdale and Telford.
Musk said that she “deserves to be in prison” for her response.
The decision was also criticised by several senior Tories, despite the previous Conservative government turning down a similar request in 2022.
Musk, a key adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump, also suggested Sir Keir had failed to properly prosecute rape gangs while director of public prosecutions (DPP), and has repeatedly retweeted Reform UK and Conservative MPs calling for a national inquiry.
Streeting’s comments came after Reform UK leader Nigel Farage defended Musk after he attacked the UK government’s response to grooming gangs.
Speaking on the same programme, Farage said Musk had used “very tough terms” but that “free speech was back” on X under his ownership.
He said the public is “absolutely right to be” angry about grooming gangs and to ask why there had not been a full public inquiry.
Streeting challenged Musk to “roll up his sleeves” and help tackle violence against women on online platforms.
“Online platforms have got a role to play in keeping people safe online, helping law enforcement on perpetrators of violence against women and people who want to groom kids online.”
The health secretary said Sir Keir and Phillips both had “records that their critics can’t even begin to touch”.
While director of public prosecutions, Sir Keir introduced a special prosecutor for child abuse and sexual exploitation to oversee convictions against grooming gangs.
Starmer also changed the Crown Prosecution Service guidance to encourage police to investigate suspects in complex sexual abuse cases and court reforms aimed at making the process less traumatic for victims.
“As director of prosecutions, Keir Starmer opened up historic cases, going after people who thought they had got away with it,” Streeting said.
“As for Jess Phillips, the work that she has done in her professional life outside politics, supporting victims of violence against women and girls, she has helped support them to get their day in in court and lock up their abusers” he added.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has called for a full national public inquiry into what she called the UK’s “rape gangs scandal”.
Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp criticised Musk’s comments on Phillips as “not appropriate” but argued he was “right to be raising the general issue”.
Philp also distanced himself from the comments of shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, who said the grooming gangs scandal had started with the “importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women”.
Philp said he disagreed with Jenrick’s choice of language, but argued his colleague was “reasonably” referring to “the fact that there were organised gangs of men, mainly from Pakistani heritage” who were grooming and raping young women.
Speaking to Kuenssberg, Philp said politicians have an “obligation” to speak about difficult issues in a calm manner “but they also have an obligation to tell the truth” on these matters.
Philp denied the Conservatives were “playing politics” with calls for a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs, given both Conservative and Labour governments had rejected calls for the Home Office investigate cases in Oldham.
Oldham abuse inquiry
In a letter seen by the BBC, Phillips and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wrote to the Conservatives setting out why they had asked Oldham Council to set up its own inquiry, rather than grant its request for a government-led one.
The letter pointed out the local authority had already started setting up its own inquiry, and added victims have said “loud and clear” they want action.
They said they supported an independent review commissioned by Mayor Andy Burnham, which covered historic abuse in Oldham and led to a new police investigation, as well as other child protection work across Greater Manchester.
The letter highlighted the work of the Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry which published its final findings in 2022. It made clear “abuse must be pursued and challenged everywhere with no fear or favour” – whether in care homes, churches, homes or by grooming gangs.
Professor Alexis Jay, who led that inquiry, said in November she felt “frustrated” that none of its 20 recommendations to tackle abuse had been implemented more than two years later.
There have been several investigations into grooming gangs in various parts of England, including Rotherham, Bristol, Cornwall and Derbyshire.
An inquiry into abuse in Rotherham found 1,400 children had been sexually abused over a 16-year period, predominantly by British Pakistani men.
An investigation in Telford found that up to 1,000 girls had been abused over 40 years – and that some cases had not been investigated because of “nervousness about race”.
