The British minister accuses Musk of endangering her life

Home Secretary Jess Phillips said Elon Musk’s “disinformation” about gang preparation in the UK and the government’s response was “endangering” her life.

Phillips came under sustained attack from the tech billionaire, who called her an “evil witch” and a “rapist-genocide advocate” while calling for her imprisonment.

Britain has been rocked in recent days by a row over the handling of historic grooming cases involving the sexual exploitation of girls by gangs of mostly British-Pakistani men, after Musk called for a new nationwide investigation into the scandal.

Musk’s outbursts against Phillips, who holds the security mandate in the British government, began after it emerged that she had rejected a request from Oldham council that the Home Office conduct a Whitehall-led investigation into the grooming scandal in the Greater Manchester town .

Instead, the Home Office urged the local authority to carry out its own review, citing precedent for investigations in other towns hit by rape gangs, including Telford and Rotherham, while also pointing to a national inquiry into child sexual exploitation, which was completed in 2022.

On Tuesday, Phillips told the BBC that the threats against her own life since Musk’s volleys against her on his social media platform “I know what they’re talking about when they try to silence women like me.”

However, she added that her treatment at the hands of Musk was “nothing” compared to the experiences of abuse victims.

Phillips told Sky News that SpaceX owner Musk should “keep going to get to Mars” and expressed anger at political opponents, including Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who pushed for a nationwide inquiry into gang recruitment after Musk made the same demand.

Musk has been contacted for comment.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer strongly defended Phillips on Monday, recognizing her achievements in defending female victims of violence and abuse.

Phillips’ comments came after Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick admitted the Conservatives “could have done more” to tackle sex abuse gangs while in government.

Jenrick defended the previous Tory government’s record, but told the BBC: “If we could have done more, should we do more now? Yes, absolutely – we need to stamp that out.”

He said a review by Professor Alexis Jay, who led a seven-year national inquiry into child sexual abuse in England and Wales, published in 2022, only looked at rape gangs in six cities, but added they may be in up to 50 would have operated.

Jenrick also defended his party’s criticism of the Labor government’s decision not to launch a Whitehall-led inquiry into the Oldham scandal.

He criticized the last Tory government’s refusal to launch an inquiry into rape gangs in Oldham, saying the previous request had come from a “small number of councillors” while the latest had come from the local authority itself.

Jenrick, who ran unsuccessfully for the Tory leadership last year, last week defended his controversial comments that the mass migration of people from “foreign cultures” with “medieval attitudes towards women” to Britain contributed to the scandal.

He said he would not “disguise” or “sanitize” his language to avoid causing offense, citing evidence that fear of being labeled a racist contributed to authorities’ failure to act against gangs , which mainly involve men of Pakistani origin.

Starmer has accused Conservative politicians of “Amplifying what the far right says” on child sexual exploitation after failing to act for “14 long years.”

Jay said on Tuesday there had been a “politicization” of the issue and warned that a new inquiry could delay implementation of her review’s recommendations.

She criticized that people had delved into the argument about the issue “in a very uninformed way.”

Jay has previously criticized the previous Conservative government for failing to implement the top 20 recommendations of its 2022 report, which warned of “endemic” abuse across society.