British PM Keir Starmer has condemned billionaire Elon Musk’s statement about the inevitability of civil war in the UK as unjustified.
A heated exchange has erupted between British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, sparked by the anti-immigration riots gripping the UK.
Over a dozen cities and towns in the UK have been engulfed in demonstrations, triggered by a deadly knife attack in Southport, England. Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, a 17-year-old British boy born to Rwandan parents has been charged with stabbing three young girls to death and injuring eight other children and two adults in an attack on a Southport dance class last week. A Liverpool judge ruled on Thursday that Rudakubana’s name, initially concealed due to laws protecting minors, be released to the public as he turns 18 this week. Despite the rapid spread of rumors that the suspect was a Muslim immigrant, the police have stated he appears to have no known links to Islam.
Musk had asserted that “civil war was inevitable,” in a video on X (formerly Twitter) that depicted the unrest. The video was posted by a user who suggested the root cause was mass migration to the UK and open-border policies.
Downing Street has responded to the statement. “There is no justification for comments like that,” Starmer’s spokesperson told reporters, calling the unrest “organized, illegal thuggery which has no place on our streets or online.”
The UK Prime Minister denounced the unrest as “pure violence,” promising to deploy a “standing army of public duty officers,” in response. “The criminal law applies online as well as offline, and I’m assured that is the approach that is being taken,” Starmer said in a released on X. “Whatever the apparent motivation, this is not protest. It is pure violence, and we will not tolerate attacks on mosques or our Muslim communities,” he emphasized.
The riots have seen mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers attacked.
“Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?” Musk questioned.
The comment came as reports of counter-protester violence surfaced in the UK media. Police in Bolton clashed with 300 “mostly Asian” counter-demonstrators after two protests met and turned violent, the Manchester Evening News reported on Monday. In a video circulating online, customers of a Birmingham pub could be seen violently assaulted. The Yardley pub, ‘The Clumsy Swan’ was attacked by “a group of Muslim youths, who broke away from the main demonstration and were wearing masks and carrying weapons,” the BBC wrote on Sunday.
The UK’s top police official was pressed on double standards over the riots, which have allegedly been dealt with more harshly than other recent unrest and protests shaking the country. To a question about ending “two-tier policing,” Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley ripped the Sky News reporter’s microphone out of his hands and walked away. He took no questions from journalists.