Health minister Karin Smyth has firmly rejected suggestions that Elon Musk is “running Britain” amid an escalating row over the Government’s handling of the grooming gangs scandal.
Tearing into the Labour minister, GB News host Eamonn Holmes told Smyth: “You can try and talk me down all day on this, you’re going to give me an answer on this.”
When pressed by Eamonn if the tech billionaire is “setting the agenda”, Smyth declared: “No, the Prime Minister is running the country.”
Musk has launched a series of inflammatory posts on social media, including a call for Starmer to be “jailed” and polling followers on whether America should “liberate” Britain from what he termed a “tyrannical government”.
Karin Smyth was grilled by GB News host Eamonn Holmes on Labour’s ‘fear’ of Elon Musk
GB News
Hitting back at his criticisms of Labour’s handling of the grooming gang scandal, Smyth dismissed Musk’s claims as “wrong” and suggested he should instead “use his platform to support victims”.
Defending Starmer, Smyth claimed that the Labour leader has a “strong track record in tackling abuse cases” due to his time as Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
“Keir Starmer himself, when he was DPP, led the assault on the evil perpetrators of this violence, and that’s what they will continue to do in government,” Smyth said.
She emphasised that Starmer had been “applauded” for his work as director of public prosecutions in “tackling these evil perpetrators and supporting victims” of grooming gangs.
Elon Musk has said Starmer was ‘complicit’ in the ‘worst mass crime in the history of Britain’GETTYShe also praised the work of cabinet colleague Jess Phillips, noting: “We are lucky to have her in Government working on that to support the victims.”
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“Jess Phillips is someone who has spent her career on supporting victims of abuse, both for child abuse and adult abuse,” she added.
The Health Minister emphasised the Government’s commitment to supporting law enforcement agencies.
“We need to support the police, we need to support the courts to bring these people to justice. All of that is absolutely front and centre what we want to do as a government,” she stated.
Reiterating her confidence in the current leadership, Smyth said Starmer and Phillips “are exactly the right people to take this forward”.
Smyth told GB News that Starmer and Phillips are the ‘right people to take this forward’
GB News
The minister went on to address the findings of the Alexis Jay report, which she said “very clearly highlighted” decades of abuse across major institutions.
“Her report catalogued abuse in our major institutions of the country, in religious institutions, in other institutions and as well as what’s happened in various local authorities and in care homes,” Smyth said.
Concluding her remarks, Smyth outlined the scale of the challenge facing the Government in addressing historical abuse cases.
“We know that there are 3 million adults already living with the experience themselves, that this has been going on for decades, that it continues to go on. And we are absolutely getting on with doing that”, she said.