Elon Musk claims King should dissolve Parliament in fresh attack on Starmer

Tech billionaire continues social media criticism of PM over handling of historic child abuse in Oldham

Elon Musk has continued his criticism of the UK government, calling on the King to step in and dissolve parliament after Labour rejected a call for a national inquiry into child grooming.

The tech billionaire triggered an explosive row on Thursday over Sir Keir Starmer’s handling of historic child abuse in Oldham after he suggested the prime minister had failed to bring “rape gangs” to justice when he was director of public prosecutions.

In his latest attack on Sir Keir, Mr Musk shared a post asking whether King Charles “should dissolve parliament and order a general election… for the sake and security” of Britain.

Mr Musk retweeted the X thread with a one-word comment: “Yes.”

Dissolution is the formal term for the end of a parliament, which occurs ahead of a general election.

While the monarch does have the power to dissolve parliament, this power is a formality and is done so upon request of the prime minister. For the King to dissolve parliament against the wishes of the prime minister would cause a constitutional crisis in the UK.

The 53-year-old Starlink boss continued to wade into the debate overnight, hours after he posted that safeguarding minister Jess Phillips “deserves to be in prison” after she denied requests for the Home Office to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham on Thursday.

Elon Musk has engaged in a long-running war of words with the PM (Getty)

Mr Musk also reposted an article in The Daily Telegraph by shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick in which he says the “grooming gangs” should be renamed “torture rape gangs”.

He wrote that Mr Musk’s comments had shamed “the establishment by taking more interest in bringing these rape gangs to justice in one evening than most of the British establishment has for decades”.

A number of prosecutions involving grooming gangs were taking place around the time Sir Keir took up his post as DPP. He launched reforms into how the CPS handles child sex abuse cases, as well as saying that ethnicity or “political correctness” should not get in the way of prosecutions.

Sir Keir has also blamed the previous Conservative government for not bringing in a duty to report safeguarding issues.

Hours after Mr Musk’s intervention on Thursday, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch demanded a full national inquiry into organised grooming gangs, with shadow home secretary Chris Philp and shadow safeguarding minister Alicia Kearns writing to the Home Office.

While Ms Phillips said she recognised the “strength of feeling” for a Home Office-led inquiry into Oldham, she told the local council the government will not “intervene”.

“I believe it is for Oldham Council alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the Government to intervene,” she said.

The last Tory government also rejected a similar request from Oldham council for a public inquiry, saying it is for local authorities to commission local inquiries.

Responding to the criticism, a Labour spokesperson pointed out that the party called for and supported a national inquiry into child sexual abuse under Professor Alexis Jay, which concluded in 2022, as well as supporting an independent review commissioned by Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, which covered Oldham.

The spokesperson also said the party would “welcome and support an independent investigation commissioned by Oldham Council which puts victims’ voices at its heart, following the examples of Telford and Rotherham”.

Meanwhile, health secretary Wes Streeting took aim at Elon Musk’s attacks, saying his comments were “misjudged and certainly misinformed”.

But he also offered an olive branch to Mr Musk, urging him to work with the government to tackle online child abuse.

Pressed if Mr Musk’s comments were unhelpful to the government, health secretary Mr Streeting told ITV News that ministers took child sexual exploitation “incredibly seriously”.

He added: “Some of the criticisms that Elon Musk has made, I think are misjudged and certainly misinformed, but we’re willing to work with Elon Musk, who I think has got a big role to play with his social media platform to help us and other countries to tackle this serious issue.

“So if he wants to work with us and roll his sleeves up, we’d welcome that.”

Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, several prominent Brexit-supporting politicians with links to Dondal Trump spent Thursday warning that Mr Musk had gone too far with his expression of support for jailed far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

In one of his social media posts, Mr Musk had called for Robinson to be freed, leading several politicians on the right of British politics to reportedly warn the US President-elect’s team not to follow the tech billionaire’s lead.

Mr Musk has engaged in a long-running war of words with Sir Keir’s administration which came to a head during last summer’s far-right riots when the social media boss claimed “civil war is inevitable” in the UK.

The Tesla boss’s latest attack comes just days after Downing Street was forced to defend Sir Keir’s government as “unashamedly pro-growth” after Mr Musk lashed out at his policies.

Responding to calls to build a new plant for his electric cars in Scotland, Mr Musk said “very few companies” would be willing to put money into the UK under Labour.

While Downing Street rejected Mr Musk’s assessment of the government’s policies, it sought to avoid being drawn into a public spat with the owner of the X social media site and a member of Mr Trump’s inner circle.