FROM CHEERS TO JEERS

Elon Musk Takes His Political Chaos Across the Pond in Effort to Turf Far-Right Leader Nigel Farage

Musk has been campaigning for a far-right, anti-Islam fascist activist who is even too extreme for the nativist Farage.

MAGA billionaire Elon Musk trained his chaotic political posts on Britain on Sunday, extending a multi-day meltdown that has gone from calling for the release of a jailed fascist Islamophobe to calling for the head of Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right Reform Party.

“The Reform Party needs a new leader,” Musk tweeted. “Farage doesn’t have what it takes.”

Farage, a key figure in the nativist Brexit campaign and longtime booster of President-elect Donald Trump, had only a day earlier hailed Musk as a “proper hero who believes in free speech.”

But he also broke with Musk over his recent support for Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a notorious far-right activist who has been involved in fascist and Islamophobic groups and uses the pseudonym Tommy Robinson.

Musk started calling in the New Year for Robinson, currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for contempt of court, to be released. Farage has long said he does not want Robinson in his party.

“Well, this is a surprise!” tweeted Farage, of Musk’s calls for his dismissal. “Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree. My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles.”

Farage could have looked to US Republicans for warning signs about the mercurial Musk. After lending his wallet and dutiful backing during the campaign, he triggered a MAGA civil war last month with posts about federal spending that led to the failure of a bill to fund the government.

The Tesla CEO had also made nice with Farage in recent weeks before his latest heel turn, hosting him at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida amid rumors he was thinking about opening his wallet for Reform, too.

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Musk launched his support for the jailed far-right activist Robinson while launching attacks on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, claiming he failed to prosecute gangs that groomed and raped young girls.

He also called for Jess Phillips, the junior minister in charge of Violence Against Women and Girls, to be thrown in prison for being a “rape genocide apologist.”

Musk was responding to a report from October, when Phillips rejected Oldham Council’s request for a government-led inquiry into child sexual exploitation.

BUTT OUT!

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The government argued the council should lead the investigation, and has said it is focused on implementing recommendations from the 2022 final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse—the current Labour government has only been in office for five months.

The head of that inquiry, Alexis Jay, said in November she was “frustrated” that none of its recommendations had been implemented.

She cautioned against further commissions and studies: “It doesn’t need more consultation, it does not need more research or discussion, it just needs to be done.”

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Sean Craig

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