Ed Davey urges Starmer to appeal to Trump over Musk comments about overthrowing UK government

7 January 2025, 18:59 | Updated: 7 January 2025, 19:32

Ed Davey has told LBC Keir Starmer to contact Donald Trump over Elon Musk's comments about overthrowing the UK government.

On Monday, Musk tweeted a poll to his 210 million followers saying "America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government".

It comes amid an escalating row the owner of X seems to have started over grooming gangs, free speech and election interference.

Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr, the Lib Dem leader also responded to the a tweet where the tech billionaire called him a "snivelling cretin".

"If you're in politics, you get used to being called all sorts of names, and frankly, in free speech, I'm not too worried about that.

"What I am worried about is when the world's wealthiest man, who's very close to the President Elect of the United States, puts out tweets saying America should overthrow and liberate our country. That is outrageous."

He also called on the UK government more closer work with Europe in the wake of this.

"I also think we need to work with our European allies.

"One of our responses to what's happening from the USA needs to be to redevelop our relationship with our European friends."

'Shocking'

When probed by Marr, Mr Davey said (Keir Starmer/David Lammy) should contact Trump directly over the comments.

"You cannot have officials of a government which is supposed to be one of our closest allies calling for our democratic elected government to be overthrown.

"It's shocking what he's been saying. 

"I've got my disagreements with this government, but they were democratically elected and the place to swore that is in our country, in our Parliament, not being pushed around by an American, whoever they are."

He had previously called for the UK government to call in the US Ambassador and the future US Ambassador to make it clear that this is "not acceptable".

Read more: Reform UK set to gain the most from Labour voter remorse, poll for LBC shows

Read more: Sir Keir Starmer sparks backlash after blaming 'far-Right' for outrage over lack of grooming gang inquiry

Mr Davey also criticised remarks made by Robert Jenrick MP on the ongoing row.

He said: "I think the remarks by Mr. Jenrick go way beyond that.

"As we've heard today in the media, he was asked about his record as Home Office Minister, where he had responsibility with his colleagues for taking forward 20 recommendations from Professor Alexis Jay, who chaired for seven years an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. They failed.

"The Conservatives and Robert Jenrick himself failed to act on recommendations of an inquiry into tackling child sexual abuse.

"I'm afraid the Conservatives don't really have much of a voice because of their huge failure to act."

Elon Musk's social media posts are "ridiculous" and the social media mogul "knows absolutely nothing" about the subject of grooming gangs, Jess Phillips has said.

Asked about the billionaire, who accused her of being a "rape genocide apologist" after she declined a request for a Whitehall-led inquiry into child sexual abuse in Oldham, Home Office minister Ms Phillips told ITV News: "It's ridiculous isn't it? The things that he's saying are so ridiculous as to initially make me just go what?

"But then you wake up with the realisation that that's millions of people that he has said that to and you feel immediately like this is going to turn my world upside down and I have to try and limit for how long that is the case.

"But you know, your immediate, my immediate thought was like just, it's sort of like, what a joke. And then the realisation of what this is probably going to mean for you."

Asked if it had turned her world upside down, Ms Phillips replied: "Yeah a little bit, a lot. Well, a lot actually it's... it's not great."

She added: "The thing that annoys me the most about it is it takes up so much bandwidth of my time from a man who knows absolutely nothing about the subject he's talking about, when the only thing I ever want to be doing is being able to use all of my brain power to focus on the hundreds of girls I have supported over the years who have been victims of grooming gangs and what needs to happen to make their lives better and to stop what is still happening today."