How should the Labour government deal with Elon Musk? It’s a question that Keir Starmer has been grappling with since violent disorder broke across England, initially stemming from false claims over the identity of the attacker in the Southport stabbings. Since then, ministers say social media has been used to encourage riots. While Telegram is of particular concern in the Home Office (as I report in this week’s politics column) for how it has been used by would-be rioters, it’s X – formerly known as Twitter – where Starmer has been the subject of a series of attacks by the site’s owner Elon Musk.
Starmer will need to tread with caution
As well as branding the Labour leader ‘#TwoTierKeir’, Musk has turned his attention to Labour MP Lauren Edwards for past controversial comments and also shared a fake Telegraph article on ‘emergency detainment camps’ in the Falklands – before deleting it. The decision by the Prime Minister’s spokesperson to slap down Musk’s claim that ‘civil war’ was inevitable in the UK has led to a fierce backlash from Musk.
Where Starmer’s No. 10 predecessor Rishi Sunak made efforts to charm Musk – even hosting him for a cosy fireside chat at last year’s AI summit, Labour is facing a decidedly frosty relationship just one month in – with Musk continuing to heap criticism on the Labour government. Starmer’s current approach is to try not to fuel the fire of a personal rift with Musk, with a decision not to respond on social media despite Musk’s multiple attempts to goad ‘TwoTier Keir’. As I report, several Starmer aides have long been weary of X/Twitter and how it can make politics more volatile – but for now it is seen as a double-edged sword. Just as the videos online have stoked the disorder, they have also been useful in aiding prosecutions of those involved.
But the combination of riots and the Musk spat means that, as the unrest appears to quell, the topic of misinformation is high on the agenda in government. Several ministers as well as London Mayor Sadiq Khan are saying the Online Safety Act – aimed at policing the internet – needs to be revisited. The current act hasn’t yet come into full force – with certain aspects set to come into force at the end of the year. Speaking on Friday, Starmer suggested that online misinformation laws will be reviewed as social media was ‘not a law-free zone’ during a visit to a police station on Friday. Meanwhile, two men have been jailed for encouraging people on social media to attack hotels housing asylum seekers.
So, how far will Starmer go? Musk is already suggesting to his 193 million followers that some of the sentencing related to social media use in relation to the riots is ‘messed up’. Among the options up for discussion is the decision to introduce controversial powers to force internet companies to take down ‘legal but harmful’ content. The Tories dropped this from the bill in 2022 (at the time, Fraser Nelson wrote for The Spectator that the proposed measure amounted to a censorship diktat). However, Labour MPs are broadly supportive of the measure. Other possibilities include reassessing criminality in relation to those at tech firms if they break the rules and strengthening Ofcom powers.
However, Starmer will need to tread with caution. First off, there are questions of freedom of expression. Second, there are questions of practicality. As Starmer’s new Science and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle put it earlier this week in an interview with the Times: ‘We cannot sit in Whitehall or Brussels or Washington and legislate and regulate to get those companies to do what we want them to do.’ His point is that tech companies are so powerful that careful diplomacy is required. It means Starmer is going to have work with the tech companies and their owners – including Musk – whether he likes it or not.
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