Elon Musk seems to have invaded Britain—if solely by way of tweet. This week, the rightwing American billionaire stirred chaos by unleashing a tweet-storm in opposition to Keir Starmer, the Labor Party chief and present U.Okay. prime minister. Musk has had it out for Starmer ever since he was elected, and this week, he took issues up a notch when he used his platform, X, to urge King Charles to dissolve Britain’s parliament and dethrone the brand new prime minister.
In basic, Musk has tried to depict Starmer’s authorities as a corrupt, incompetent regime that’s harming Britain. To capstone that messaging effort, Musk reposted a message this week from a commenter that learn: “Who also thinks the KING should Dissolve Parliament and order a General Election be called for the sake and security of the country? The King must ACT before it is too late!” Musk replied to the person’s put up, stating merely: “Yes.”
That’s not all Musk obtained up to. The American billionaire additionally seized on a scandal involving little one grooming road gangs and used the episode to accuse Starmer of failing to maintain little one rapists in his nation to account, claiming Starmer was “complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN.” The scandal in query includes the phenomenon of “grooming gangs” in north England, that are stated to be composed largely of perpetrators of South Asian or British Pakistani heritage. Musk was subsequently accused of “politicizing” the rape of younger women as a way of pushing his personal rightwing agenda.
At the identical time, Musk introduced assist for Tommy Robinson, a far-right political activist and convicted fraudster with a violent felony report who’s at the moment serving a jail time period. Robinson, whose given title is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has been known as an “anti-Islam” activist and accused of Islamaphobia. “Free Tommy Robinson!” Musk posted. Robinson/Lennon is the founding father of the English Defense League, a now defunct group that lobbied in opposition to Islamic extremism. Musk stirred up a lot bother that conservative political allies of Trump reportedly had to distance themselves from the feedback. Indeed, Bloomberg stories that “senior politicians on the UK right” reached out to “Donald Trump’s allies, urging the US President-elect’s team not to endorse British far-right activist Tommy Robinson.”
Why does Musk have it out for Starmer so unhealthy? No one actually is aware of for positive, although it’s troublesome not to see it as a broader effort to make the incoming liberal authorities look unhealthy so {that a} totally different (presumably conservative) authorities may quickly take its place. That stated, it’s not like Musk is the primary American plutocrat to mess with U.Okay. politics. Indeed, the connection between U.S. billionaires and the hassle to remake Britain right into a rightwing dystopia, has been well-established for fairly a while.
The U.S.-led push to make Britain extra rightwing
One cause that Musk and his cohort could also be freaking out a lot about Starmer is that he’s the primary British prime minister in years who hasn’t loved political affiliations with the American proper. Boris Johnson, who served as PM between 2019 and 2022, notably schmoozed with pro-Trump people, known as himself a libertarian, and his insurance policies had been largely formed by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a think-tank that’s a part of a worldwide libertarian community referred to as Atlas. While the Atlas Network was based by a British citizen, it’s based mostly within the U.S. and enjoys associations with a wide range of American organizations, together with the Heritage Foundation and ALEC (the pro-corporate, American Legislative Exchange Council). Prior to her rise to turn into Britain’s shortest-tenured prime minister, the infamous Liz Truss met with numerous rightwing U.S. assume tanks, together with Heritage, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and ALEC. Later, when she grew to become prime minister, a lot of Truss’s financial coverage agenda was additionally largely developed by IEA. When Truss tried to resolve Britain’s woes with large tax cuts for billionaires (a notably Trumpian resolution), she was swiftly laughed out of presidency and abruptly resigned. Since stepping down from her PM function, Truss hasn’t executed a complete lot besides fangirl out over Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak, the interim prime minister who served between Truss and Starmer, additionally loved dense ties to America and tried to deploy “free market,” libertarian insurance policies, the majority of which had been deeply unpopular.
Musk’s propaganda function
The effort to rework Western nations into conservative strongholds has been bolstered by propaganda efforts designed to shake confidence in liberal governments. It must be famous that, on the identical time that Musk has sought to very publicly assault Starmer’s liberal authorities, he has additionally more and more allied himself with most of the organizations and forces which have supported Britain’s cultural and financial drift in direction of the precise.
I not too long ago wrote that Musk is mainly the brand new Steve Bannon, which means that Musk—like Bannon earlier than him—helped Trump get elected by serving as a messaging guru who may incite political assist by tapping into voters’ cultural and financial grievances. Bannon, who helped Trump get elected in 2016, can also be credited with serving to to carry American-style nativism to British political tradition. Bannon additionally notably supported Tommy Robinson lengthy earlier than Musk started tweeting about him. As far again as 2018, Bannon was overtly complimenting the rightwing agitator. In leaked audio, Bannon ranted: “Tommy Robinson is the f***ing backbone of this country. You lose guys like Tommy Robinson, you’re not going to have a country,” he apparently stated, of Britain. In February of final 12 months, Bannon appeared on the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland (alongside Liz Truss) and known as Robinson a “hero.”
What Bannon did in a comparatively quiet vogue, nevertheless, Musk is doing in broad daylight. Through his platform X, Musk has managed to promote a slew of rightwing conspiracy theories and misinformation that appears designed to shake public confidence in Starmer’s authorities. Before his pro-Robinson tweets and his feedback about dissolving parliament and road rapes, Musk additionally used his platform to touch upon a stabbing episode that led to riots all through Britain. Musk’s feedback had been even credited with exacerbating the riots. Musk additionally not too long ago known as for brand spanking new elections in order that Starmer may very well be voted out of workplace.
So whereas it might be occurring on a special continent, Musk’s propaganda efforts within the U.Okay. would seem to be similar to those he’s finishing up within the U.S. Those efforts can also’t assist however be seen as a continuation of a broader effort by the American political rightwing to use racial and financial grievances as a way of radicalizing decrease and middle-class populations and herding them in direction of financial agendas which might be designed by and for the rich. That stated, this program may go a complete lot higher within the U.S. than it has in Britain, the place the typical IQ could also be barely larger.
