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 towards Keir Starmer, the Labor Celebration 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 induce King Charles to dissolve Britain’s parliament and dethrone the brand new prime minister.
Usually, 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 additionally thinks the KING ought to Dissolve Parliament and order a Common Election be known as for the sake and safety of the nation? The King should ACT earlier than it’s too late!” Musk replied to the consumer’s put up, stating merely: “Sure.”
That’s not all Musk obtained as much as. The American billionaire additionally seized on a scandal involving child grooming street gangs and used the episode to accuse Starmer of failing to carry baby rapists in his nation to account, claiming Starmer was “complicit within the RAPE OF BRITAIN.” The scandal in query includes the phenomenon of “grooming gangs” in north England, that are mentioned to be composed largely of perpetrators of South Asian or British Pakistani heritage. Musk was subsequently accused of “politicizing” the rape of young girls as a method of pushing his personal rightwing agenda.
On the identical time, Musk introduced help for Tommy Robinson, a far-right political activist and convicted fraudster with a violent prison file who’s at present serving a jail time period. Robinson, whose given title is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has been called an “anti-Islam” activist and accused of Islamaphobia. “Free Tommy Robinson!” Musk posted. Robinson/Lennon is the founding father of the English Protection League, a now defunct group that lobbied against Islamic extremism. Musk stirred up a lot hassle that conservative political allies of Trump reportedly needed to distance themselves from the feedback. Certainly, Bloomberg reports that “senior politicians on the UK proper” reached out to “Donald Trump’s allies, urging the US President-elect’s staff to not endorse British far-right activist Tommy Robinson.”
Why does Musk have it out for Starmer so dangerous? Nobody actually is aware of for positive, although it’s tough to not see it as a broader effort to make the incoming liberal authorities look dangerous so {that a} completely different (presumably conservative) authorities would possibly quickly take its place. That mentioned, it’s not like Musk is the primary American plutocrat to mess with U.Okay. politics. Certainly, the connection between U.S. billionaires and the effort 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 purpose 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 of us, known as himself a libertarian, and his insurance policies have been largely shaped by the Institute of Financial Affairs (IEA), a think-tank that’s a part of a worldwide libertarian community referred to as Atlas. Whereas the Atlas Community was based by a British citizen, it’s primarily based within the U.S. and enjoys associations with a wide range of American organizations, together with the Heritage Basis and ALEC (the pro-corporate, American Legislative Trade Council). Previous to her rise to change into Britain’s shortest-tenured prime minister, the infamous Liz Truss met with a number of rightwing U.S. assume tanks, together with Heritage, the Aggressive Enterprise Institute, and ALEC. Later, when she turned prime minister, a lot of Truss’s financial coverage agenda was also largely developed by IEA. When Truss tried to resolve Britain’s woes with massive tax cuts for billionaires (a notably Trumpian solution), she was swiftly laughed out of government and abruptly resigned. Since stepping down from her PM position, Truss hasn’t achieved an entire lot besides fangirl out over Donald Trump. In the meantime, 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 policies, the majority of which have been deeply unpopular.
Musk’s propaganda position
The hassle to rework Western nations into conservative strongholds has been bolstered by propaganda efforts designed to shake confidence in liberal governments. It ought to 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 fitting.
I recently 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 might incite political help by tapping into voters’ cultural and financial grievances. Bannon, who helped Trump get elected in 2016, can be credited with serving to to convey American-style nativism to British political tradition. Bannon additionally notably supported Tommy Robinson lengthy earlier than Musk started tweeting about him. Way back to 2018, Bannon was overtly complimenting the rightwing agitator. In leaked audio, Bannon ranted: “Tommy Robinson is the f***ing spine of this nation. You lose guys like Tommy Robinson, you’re not going to have a rustic,” he apparently mentioned, of Britain. In February of final yr, Bannon appeared on the Conservative Political Motion Convention in Maryland (alongside Liz Truss) and called Robinson a “hero.”
What Bannon did in a comparatively quiet vogue, nonetheless, Musk is doing in broad daylight. Via his platform X, Musk has managed to advertise a slew of rightwing conspiracy theories and misinformation that appears designed to shake public confidence in Starmer’s authorities. Earlier than 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 have been even credited with exacerbating the riots. Musk additionally lately called for new elections in order that Starmer might be voted out of workplace.
So whereas it might be occurring on a unique continent, Musk’s propaganda efforts within the U.Okay. would seem like an identical to those he’s finishing up within the U.S. These efforts can also’t assist however be seen as a continuation of a broader effort by the American political rightwing to make use of racial and financial grievances as a method of radicalizing decrease and middle-class populations and herding them in direction of financial agendas which are designed by and for the rich. That mentioned, this program may fit an entire lot higher within the U.S. than it has in Britain, the place the typical IQ could also be barely larger.
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