How the British political class is using Elon Musk

Another day, another UK volley from the one-man media universe that is Elon Musk. At 2:51 this morning, Musk posted a yes/no poll on his X feed: “America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government.” At the time of writing, 70 percent of 170,000 X users replied in the affirmative. 

Musk seems determined to drive our national conversation, in the way that newspapers and then TV/radio networks still claim to do, and the British political and media class seem strangely content to enable him.  

In a speech this morning, Prime Minister Keir Starmer just turned another of his big “reset” moments into an angry diatribe in response to the Musk-led assault on his and Labour’s record over the grooming (raping) gangs scandal. 

“Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible, they are not interested in victims, they are interested in themselves,” said the PM. “Those who are cheerleading Tommy Robinson are not interested in justice, they are supporting a man who went to prison for nearly collapsing a grooming case, a gang grooming case,” he added. He also defended Jess Phillips, the secretary of state for safeguarding and violence against women and Girls, who Musk says should be in jail.

Starmer seems to believe Musk’s relentless shitposting about the state of the United Kingdom gives him a chance to redefine his government and his party in the public eye.

Which, funnily enough, is exactly what the Reform Party believes, following Musk’s intriguing turn this weekend against Nigel Farage. Contrary to all the gloating about divisions within the political right, senior Reform sources insist that the Elon and Nigel’s disagreement over the righteousness of the man usually called Tommy Robinson is in fact a “Clause IV” moment for the fastest growing party in British politics.    

“Life would be boring if we always agree with each other,” says Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader. “Thank God for free speech. This just reclarifies that we want nothing to do with Tommy Robinson. He will never be involved.”

Under the direction of Muhammad Ziauddin Yusuf, Reform’s new chairman, the party has been looking for fresh opportunities to make itself appear more professional and mainstream. Falling out with the world’s richest man over a controversial figure such as the man who was christened Stephen Yaxley-Lennon could be just such a moment. The party’s new mission seems to be to establish itself as more realistic, or less incendiary, on the subject of Islam, which is why Nigel Farage now talks about not “alienating the whole of Islam.” (“Interesting perspective,” snarked Musk, in reply to a post accusing Farage of saying Reform must “embrace Islam to win.”) At the same time, Reform’s supporters can point out that, contra Musk, Farage was sounding the alarm about gangs of Muslim men raping British girls long before Elon Musk first discovered the joys of Twitter. 

Perhaps more revealing is that both Labour and Reform are reacting to the Musk-led news cycle, and using the world’s richest man’s provocations to defend their own records. The Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, meanwhile, has been less reactive to Musk’s outbursts, though she has called for a government enquiry into the gangs scandal. For the British political class, it seems, it’s Elon Musk’s world and we’re just living in it.