Elon Musk has ramped up his row with the UK as he branded the prime minister “two-tier Keir” and questioned if it was “Britain or the Soviet Union” after a man was apparently arrested over Facebook comments.
The billionaire owner of X has been engaged in a war of words with Sir Keir Starmer over riots gripping the UK, amid concerns online disinformation is fuelling the unrest.
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In his latest rebuke, Musk reposted a video appearing to show police officers arresting a man for making offensive comments on Facebook.
“Arrested for making comments on Facebook!,” Musk wrote on X.
“Is this Britain or the Soviet Union? Is this accurate @Community Notes.”
Community Notes is X’s own fact checking resource.
In the video, an officer is shown telling a man he is being arrested on suspicion of improper use of the electronics communications network.
This covers sending a message that is “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” and can result in a maximum six-month jail term or a fine.
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Police injured in Plymouth unrest
In a later post aimed directly at Sir Keir, Musk asked “why aren’t all communities protected in Britain?”.
It was in response to a video appearing to show large crowds of masked people gathered outside a pub, some waving the Palestine flag.
Musk directed a similar comment towards the prime minister on Monday after Sir Keir said he would not tolerate attacks on Muslim communities.
Mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers have been among the targets of unrest across the UK for the past week.
In another post, Musk used the hashtag #twotierKeir, in reference to “two-tier policing”. This is a claim often used by the far-right to suggest that police treat certain groups of people in different ways.
Sir Keir and Conservative leadership contender Dame Priti Patel are among the senior politicians who have rejected claims this is an issue, while Neil Basu, Britain’s former head of counter-terrorism, called it a “very dangerous rhetoric”.
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The row with Musk started after he claimed that “civil war is inevitable” in the UK – comments which were quickly condemned by the government.
Earlier, justice minister Heidi Alexander told Sky News that “everyone should be calling for calm in this situation”.
“So I do think the language around civil war being inevitable is totally unjustified,” she added.
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Elon Musk comments ‘unjustified’
The riots began in Southport last Tuesday in the wake of the fatal stabbings of three girls in the Merseyside town, and have spread to towns and cities across the UK.
The row with Musk risks threatening government efforts to get social media companies to take more responsibility for removing harmful online content believed to be stoking some of the violence.
Misinformation online said the person arrested over the Southport attacks was a Muslim refugee who arrived in the UK last year via a small boat.
Axel Rudakubana, the teenager who was arrested and charged by police, was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents before moving to a village near Southport.
Sir Keir has been clear that anyone inciting violence – whether online or offline – “will face the full force of the law”.
Mr Basu has said the worst of the far-right violence should be treated as terrorism, and Musk’s comments are “pretty disgraceful”.
