The US tech guru’s assault on Keir Starmer was politically motivated – however that doesn’t imply it’s not substantiated or revelatory
Elon Musk’s dramatic current intervention in British politics has raised plenty of vital points regarding the pervasive affect of social media on politics within the West.
Final week Musk launched an unprecedented assault on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Minister for Safeguarding Ladies and Ladies (a typical woke train in advantage signalling) Jessica Phillips, over their involvement within the notorious “grooming gangs scandal”.
This scandal concerned lots of of males (for probably the most a part of Pakistani origin) grooming numerous younger ladies (for probably the most half white) for illicit sexual functions – that happened in some 40 migrant-dominated British cities (most famously Rotherdam) between 1997 and 2013.
Subsequent inquiries disclosed that widespread grooming happened, and that the rapid response by police, native councils and the director of public prosecutions DPP was tardy and unenthusiastic, to say the least.
Complaints by mother and father of the younger ladies had been initially ignored by police, and the mainstream British media didn’t comprehensively report on what was taking place on the time.
Conservative commentators and a few Tory politicians have for the previous decade sought to politicise the “grooming gangs” subject, claiming that these failures had been attributable to institutionalised woke reluctance to show the prison actions of members of an ethnic group, and rigorously prosecute wrongdoers.
Starmer was the DPP between 2008 and 2013, and that is the idea for Musk’s assault on him. He accused Starmer of being “evil”, failing to prosecute offenders due to his ideological dedication to variety politics and of being complicit “within the worst mass crime within the historical past of Britain”.
Musk additionally intemperately referred to as Jessica Phillips a “rape genocide apologist” – an absurd time period – and a “witch”. Such crudities look like the norm for Musk.
The “grooming gangs scandal” grew to become a political subject once more in October final 12 months, when Phillips rejected requires an additional nationwide inquiry into the matter. Musk has now referred to as for a wide-ranging inquiry into the scandal and Starmer’s private involvement in it. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative chief, has additionally referred to as for a authorities inquiry.
Starmer has firmly rejected Musk’s allegations – he claims, in truth, to have prosecuted some offenders – and it isn’t but obvious exactly what Starmer’s private position, if any, within the scandal was. Starmer has predictably accused Musk of “peddling lies and misinformation” and refused to ascertain an inquiry.
There is no such thing as a doubt that Musk’s intervention is politically motivated.
As an influential member of the incoming Trump administration, Musk is little doubt looking for to curry favour with the brand new president by attacking Starmer – whose unwavering help for NATO and the crumbling Zelensky regime are anathema to Trump.
Trump’s current feedback make it clear that he’s decided to withdraw US help for Zelensky and produce a few negotiated settlement to the battle in Ukraine.
The truth that Musk’s feedback had been politically motivated, nevertheless, doesn’t imply that they’re fully with out substance – however his vulgar rhetoric.
Musk’s denunciation of the unpopular and beleaguered Starmer has understandably provoked a torrent of criticism from Labour MPs and woke media organisations within the UK and elsewhere. Some have even referred to as naively for Musk’s X social media platform to be banned within the UK – as if that had been potential.
These criticisms are obviously self-interested and disgracefully hypocritical.
Additionally they smack of desperation by a political elite that has, for the previous 20 years, enthusiastically embraced and utilised social media platforms, whereas showering tax advantages and authorized immunities upon the tech titans – like Musk and Mark Zuckerberg – that personal and run them as private fiefdoms.
How can Starmer and the Labour celebration criticise Musk for “intervening” in British politics with a straight face?
UK politics – and politics within the West typically – has been irreversibly corrupted by international social media companies for the previous 20 years.
Nationwide elections at the moment are run on international social media platforms that successive governments, of no matter political stripe, have permitted to bombard voters with fully unfiltered info – together with wild conspiracy theories, demonstrable falsehoods and vile abuse – that’s designed to exacerbate and ensure recipients’ prejudices.
Massive social media platforms now decide political outcomes within the West and have executed so for a while. The Brexit referendum is a traditional instance.
Extra importantly, the tech giants have nearly destroyed the educated public – why learn books when Tik Tok can offer you all the data that you just want – and made rational political debate inconceivable within the West.
Conventional media retailers – that had been run by skilled editors and staffed by skilled journalists – didn’t, as a part of their fundamental enterprise mannequin, publish unfiltered info or derogatory materials penned by unhinged conspiracy theorists. Nor did they aim readers within the neo-totalitarian method wherein social media platforms now do.
For all of their manifold faults and ideological limitations, conventional media organisations within the West recurrently revealed knowledgeable important and dissident thought and inspired rational political debate.
These organisations, nevertheless, have little affect over politics within the West in the present day – and so they actually not decide the end result of elections.
Mark Zuckerberg’s current determination to abolish reality checking fully is solely the endgame of the corruption of Western mental life and politics that has been on the coronary heart of the worldwide social media agenda since its inception twenty years in the past.
Starmer, like most different modern Western politicians, has, in fact, eagerly used social media and its inherent anti-intellectualism with the intention to achieve workplace and destroy his political opponents.
Starmer’s marketing campaign to drive Jeremy Corbyn and the normal Labour omitted of the celebration – primarily based primarily upon false allegations of anti-semitism – is only one instance. Starmer additionally gleefully used the “partygate” materials leaked by Dominic Cummings to destroy Boris Johnson’s Prime Ministership.
When comparable techniques are used towards him, nevertheless, Starmer cries “disinformation”– with a level of hypocrisy that’s merely breathtaking.
Having permitted the tech titans’ unfettered freedom to form and debauch public opinion for many years – at a time after they, by and enormous, promoted elite ideologies – woke politicians like Starmer evince outrage when these people change their political allegiance, and embrace the more and more extra interesting political agendas of populist leaders like Trump.
Starmer and the Labour celebration have by no means sought to impose efficient restrictions on the worldwide tech giants, and Starmer is so enamoured of them that simply this week – within the midst of the Musk imbroglio – he introduced Labour’s new coverage of “making Britain a world chief in AI”.
It’s no marvel that Musk feels free to deal with Starmer with contempt, and marketing campaign to have him pushed out of workplace.
Starmer and his ilk have sown the wind for many years and at the moment are starting to reap the whirlwind. Actually, they resemble latter-day Dr Frankensteins who’re powerless to regulate the monsters that they created.
What then of the substance of Musk’s allegations?
Earlier inquiries have conclusively proven that widespread grooming happened – though its extent isn’t clear – and that the police and different authorities had been exceedingly sluggish to take applicable motion. It’s also obvious that woke media organisations didn’t adequately report on your complete “grooming gang scandal” when it was taking place.
This, in fact, as conservative media retailers and politicians assert, can solely be defined by a deep-seated ideological reluctance to pursue perpetrators who occurred to have come from an ethnic background.
As with all “tradition wars “ points within the West, the seek for fact was compromised from the outset by emotive ethical posturing and irrational allegations and counter allegations of “racism” and “wokeism”.
Neither facet of the impassioned political debate was prepared to place their ideological prejudices apart and decide precisely what occurred in Rotherdam and different cities – not to mention make sure that applicable motion was taken towards the perpetrators.
Within the circumstances, why shouldn’t there be an additional inquiry into what even Starmer agrees was a nationwide scandal ?
As to Starmer’s private involvement within the “grooming gangs scandal” the place is way much less clear. However Starmer’s refusal to ascertain an inquiry into the matter absolutely smacks of gross hypocrisy.
How can the politician who enthusiastically supported inquiries into the arguably much less severe alleged transgressions of Jeremy Corbyn, Dianne Abbott and Boris Johnson now refuse to ascertain an inquiry into Musk’s allegations?
The reply to that query is, in fact, that inside Starmer’s ideological world-view, one algorithm apply to international elite apologists like himself and fairly one other applies to politicians who maintain differing ideological views.
To have dramatically uncovered this modern political truism could also be an important consequence of Elon Musk’s current theatrical incursion into British politics.
The statements, views and opinions expressed on this column are solely these of the creator and don’t essentially symbolize these of RT.
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