Keir Starmer has stated the web debate about youngster sexual exploitation is predicated on lies, with politicians “leaping on the bandwagon merely to get consideration” as he hit again at Elon Musk.
Responding to questions on social media posts from the billionaire Tesla proprietor, Starmer stated a line had been crossed when the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, and others obtained severe threats because of the “poison of the far proper”.
The prime minister rejected calls for one more overview into the Oldham rape gang instances as a result of he stated the “totally sickening” problem “doesn’t want any extra consultations, it simply wants motion”.
He stated a line had been crossed when Musk urged Phillips “deserves to be in jail” for denying requests for the Residence Workplace to open a public inquiry into youngster sexual exploitation in Oldham, and known as her a “rape genocide apologist”.
Starmer was launching his authorities’s reforms of the NHS at Epsom hospital when he was requested about Musk’s assaults on Phillips, and likewise the billionaire’s claims that Starmer needs to be in jail.
He expressed his considerations concerning the future route of the Conservative occasion beneath Kemi Badenoch, given the Conservatives didn’t condemn Musk’s feedback about Phillips.
Starmer stated: “These which can be spreading lies and misinformation as far and as vast as doable, they’re not all in favour of victims. They’re all in favour of themselves.
“Those that are cheerleading Tommy Robinson are usually not all in favour of justice. They’re supporting a person who went to jail for almost collapsing a grooming case, a gang grooming case. These are folks making an attempt to get some sort of vicarious thrill from road violence that folks like Tommy Robinson promote.”
Expressing his help for his safeguarding minister, the prime minister added: “And people attacking Jess Phillips, whom I’m proud to name a colleague and a good friend, on defending victims – Jess Phillips has finished 1,000 instances greater than they’ve even dreamt about in terms of defending victims of sexual abuse all through her complete profession …
“We’ve seen this playbook many instances, whipping up of intimidation and threats of violence, hoping that the media will amplify it.
“Jess Phillips doesn’t want me or anyone else to talk on her behalf. However when the poison of the far proper results in severe threats to Jess Phillips and others, that in my e-book [means] a line has been crossed.”
He additionally defended his document as director of public prosecutions, which has been known as into query within the on-line debate on youngster sexual exploitation.
Starmer stated: “For a lot of, a few years, too many victims have been utterly let down; let down by perverse concepts about group relations or by the concept establishments should be protected above all else. They usually’ve not been listened to, they usually’ve not been heard.
“And after I was chief prosecutor for 5 years, I tackled that head-on, as a result of I might see what was taking place, and that’s why I reopened instances which have been closed and supposedly completed. I introduced the primary main prosecution of an Asian grooming gang – within the specific case it was in Rochdale, nevertheless it was the primary of its variety …
“We modified, or I modified, the entire prosecution method, as a result of I needed to problem, and did problem, the myths and stereotypes that had been stopping these victims being heard.”
He stated his “document just isn’t secret”, and stated he had known as for “obligatory reporting of kid sexual abuse”, which he claimed “the Tories did nothing about … together with when the [Prof Alexis] Jay report got here out”.
Musk had used his personal platform, X, to assert Starmer didn’t act towards the intercourse offender Jimmy Savile when he was director of public prosecutions.
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