Keir Starmer’s complicated relationship with Elon Musk’s X

After a government minister says she has deleted X, formerly Twitter, from her phone because it has become ‘a place of misery’, Kate Devlin looks at the difficult relationship between Labour politicians and the site

Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X, has been criticised for disseminating false information about recent disorder in the UK (PA Archive)

It is hard to remember nowadays, but there used to be a time when politicians tried to resist Twitter, as Elon Musk’s X used to be known. The then prime minister David Cameron even famously quipped in an interview that too many tweets “might make a twat”. However, as it swiftly became the social media drug of choice for the political classes, it became almost impossible for MPs not to have an account.

In the wake of Mr Musk’s attacks on the government and Sir Keir Starmer over the recent riots, is it time for Labour politicians to break up with X?

Which minister has deleted X from her phone?

Home Office minister Jess Phillips has said she is “not going to use it very much” any more.

She told an audience at the Edinburgh Festival: "As soon as he took it over, I took the app off my phone.” The minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls added: “Fundamentally, for me now, I think that I am sort of done with it, I don’t wish to fish in that particular pond any more.”

Strong words from Ms Phillips, who admits she was “massively addicted” to the social media site.

So what’s the problem?

No 10 clashed with X owner Mr Musk earlier this week after the billionaire entrepreneur used the platform to claim “civil war” was “inevitable” in Britain.

Mr Musk also hit out at the prime minister, calling him #twotierkeir, aping the language of a right-wing conspiracy theory which claims different types of protesters are treated differently by the police. He was even the victim of misinformation on his own site after he tweeted fake news that Sir Keir was considering building detention camps in the Falklands.

Cabinet ministers have warned that online posts acted as a “rocket booster” for the organisation of violence. Sir Keir is under pressure to call an inquiry into the role social media played, to prevent platforms “fuelling” more violence. For his part, Sir Keir has pledged to “look more broadly at social media” when he is sure the riots are over.

So why don’t politicians just quit X?

For one, the obvious answer is that it gives them a very direct, instantaneous channel to their voters that they never had before.

Social media is also a powerful campaigning tool. In the first few weeks of the election campaign, Labour spent more than £2.4m on social media ads – more than twice as much as the Conservatives. Keir Starmer himself came under fire last year for an attack advert, widely shared on Twitter, which claimed Rishi Sunak did not think that people who sexually abuse children should go to prison.

Labour’s X account also triumphantly posted “Preparation is the key to success” alongside images of Sir Keir in a Team GB cagoule at the Olympics while other world leaders appeared to struggle with plastic versions.

But for politicians, like many X users, there is also the hope that things might change. The former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron posted on X at the weekend: “By the way, no way am I leaving Twitter. This place is like a lovely pub, that got taken over by some soulless pub company and with a full on wazzock as a new landlord. But I was here first and I’m staying.”