Malik Waqar
Just 12 per cent of the British public believes Elon Musk is having a positive impact with his interventions into UK politics, new polling suggests.
The world’s richest man has used his social media site X to post a barrage of unceasing and often baseless attacks on Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour government to his 210 million followers in recent days, as he makes conspiratorial claims that they are somehow complicit in the grooming gangs scandal.
After Sir Keir condemned the billionaire’s “lies and misinformation” and his attacks on safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, home secretary Yvette Cooper this week announced a new law recommended by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, and pledged further measures would follow.
But Mr Musk – who is set to hold a major role in Donald Trump’s incoming US administration – is continuing to call for a national inquiry, a move which has now been backed by the Conservative Party and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, while Downing Street instead favours locally-led inquiries.
As claims surface that the billionaire has been seeking advice on how to try and oust Sir Keir from Downing Street ahead of the next general election, new polling has found that the majority of British voters view his interventions as unhelpful.
Some 53 per cent of more than 2,000 people surveyed by Opinium thought that Mr Musk was having a negative impact on British politics, compared to just 12 per cent who thought he was having a positive influence.
On his comments about grooming gangs specifically, 47 per cent said they thought Mr Musk was being “unhelpful”, compared to just 26 per cent who thought the opposite.
And in a boost for Nigel Farage, who is set to meet Mr Musk at Mr Trump’s inauguration after the billionaire claimed he should be replaced as Reform UK leader, Opinium found that 71 per cent of the party’s voters believe the Clacton MP is the best leader they could currently have.
Opinium’s head of political research Adam Drummond said a “lack of enthusiasm about a foreign billionaire involving himself in British politics” was “one area of agreement” among the public.
However, the Opinium poll found that the public was split on the issue of holding another national inquiry into grooming gangs, with 36 per cent backing such a probe.
Some 28 per cent thought local councils should hold their own inquiries instead while the government focused on implementing the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse that reported in 2022.
Mr Drummond said: “If you ask voters ‘should there be an inquiry into an important issue’ the answer will be ‘yes’.
“An inquiry sounds like doing something about the problem and doesn’t really consider opportunity costs. So it’s not surprising that the numbers are more nuanced when we put actual courses of action in front of people.”
But there was also widespread disapproval for both main parties’ handling of the issue, according to the polling, which was carried out between Wednesday and Friday.
Approval of the Labour government’s handling of the issue was a net -17 per cent, but approval of the previous Tory government’s approach was even lower at -27 per cent. There was little support for the Tories’ current approach either, which scored a net approval rating of -11 per cent.
Professor Alexis Jay, who chaired the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, has condemned the recent “politicising” of the issue, as she urged the government to act on the “full implementation” of reforms set out in her 2022 report.
Prof Jay’s report looked into abuse by organised groups following multiple convictions of sexual offences against children across the UK between 2010-2014, including in Rotherham, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Rochdale in Greater Manchester, and Bristol.
