Senior Labour MPs Demand Crackdown on X After Elon Musk’s "Dangerous" Rally Comments
Elon Musk addressed the rally organised by Tommy Robinson in London on Saturday (Alamy)
7 min read
Senior Labour MPs are urging the government to take stronger action against hate speech, misinformation and violent rhetoric on Elon Musk’s X, warning that the site has become a direct threat to public safety and democratic debate.
On Saturday, a rally in London organised by far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson drew in between 110,000 and 150,000 protestors. Elon Musk, the US billionaire and owner of X (formerly Twitter), addressed the crowd via video link, calling for the immediate dissolution of Parliament and a new government.
“You’re in a fundamental situation here where whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you,” Musk said. “You either fight back or you die.”
The UK government condemned these comments on Monday, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer's official spokesperson telling reporters that “the last thing the British people want is this sort of dangerous and inflammatory language, which threatens violence and intimidation on our streets”.
However, senior Labour MPs have told PoliticsHome they want the government to go further in response to Musk. Two committee chairs said ministers should "lead by example" and strengthen legislation to tackle the spread of hate speech and misinformation on X, as well as scale back the government's presence on the platform.
Labour MP Sarah Owen, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, described Musk’s comments as “shocking”, but added that “this is the train that he has been on for a very long time, and it just gets more and more extreme.”
She believes X is breaching hate speech laws under the Online Safety Act and guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Online Safety Act, which came into force this year, places legal duties on online platforms to protect users from illegal content such as hate speech and harmful posts.
"100%, it's breaching all of these things," Owen said.
"We've had Jewish organisations, we've had Muslim organisations give evidence to our committee that they just don't even bother with X anymore in terms of trying to take down hate speech or violence or threats, because you don't get a response. So it's accountable and unanswerable to anyone."
Owen wants the government to take a tougher stance on calling X out for these alleged breaches, as well as strengthen the regulators to enforce the law.
“The EHRC is chronically under-resourced, and in terms of trust, that really has to be built up with some of the communities that are most vulnerable from the hate speech that we see on X,” she said.
“I worry that Ofcom tries to encourage platforms and websites to do better in the online space, but that isn't going to work with X, because they have shown no willingness to improve the situation.
“The response [from government] could go much harder and be much better in terms of the response to this far-right rhetoric that we're seeing proliferate on what used to be a mainstream platform.”
Owen, the MP for Luton North, also urged the government to step back from X and explore alternative platforms such as Bluesky, which she said even her own committee had been somewhat reluctant to join.
“I don't know why parliament and parties seem quite reluctant to try new things sometimes,” she said.
“Why would anybody want to lend legitimacy to a platform that’s primary purpose is to make money off the back of hate?”
Owen, who stopped using X herself last year, said: “My life has gotten infinitely better, but also my access to real information hasn't lessened.”
The Prime Minister's spokesperson said the government “always keeps under review our communications strategy, with the objective frankly of reaching people where they consume their media".
Owen added that if it were not Musk, people would be “up in arms” over similar interference: “He was a foreign state actor who is now essentially trying to disrupt UK democracy and UK politics.”
PoliticsHome previously reported that independent MP Rupert Lowe has earned nearly £40,000 from posting on X alone. Lowe’s content, often provocative and posted at high volume, has consistently driven high levels of engagement, and his reach has been amplified by Musk, who has more than 225m followers, engaging with the MP's posts.
Owen responded: “If you’re making your money – on top of taxpayers’ money and your pay – off a platform that primarily makes its money off hate speech, is that an ethical way to be going about things?”
Chi Onwurah, Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, has also voiced concerns over perceived gaps in online safety legislation that were highlighted in a report by her committee earlier this year.
“Misinformation was not covered by the Online Safety Act, although there was significant confusion at the highest levels – I mean the highest levels of ministers and Ofcom – as to whether it was covered by it, and also generative AI was not covered by it,” she told PoliticsHome on Monday.
“Given that we're a year on from the Southport riots… it is really urgent that the government take action. Both to strengthen the protections in the Online Safety Act, but also to show all of us – parliamentarians, but more importantly, the British public – what their views are, and that we will take action to ensure that, regardless of the power of the tech owners, [government] will be on the British people’s side and it will protect us from both violence and from misinformation.”
Several 2024 intake Labour MPs went further and said the government needs to seriously reconsider whether it should suspend communications on X altogether.
Alex Ballinger, MP for Halesowen, said: “The government does need to look at our online communication strategy and whether Twitter is the best place for us to be posting first.
“I don't think the majority of the public are on Twitter anymore, certainly not Labour voters. Whether that should be the primary means of government communicating is a really good question.”
He said he was in favour of extending the Online Safety Act to cover more kinds of hate speech, as current online rhetoric was “making people in my community feel scared”.
Ben Goldborough, MP for South Norfolk, said the EHRC needed stronger enforcement.
“The EHRC needs to put its big boy boots on and actually investigate these platforms and then hold them to account,” he said.
“The government needs to come off X. Public bodies and institutions need to come off it because it's a self-feeding beast… journalists have to be on there because the government is using it.”
The MP for St Austell and Newquay, Noah Law, has written in Byline Times that "Twitter is not an impartial platform, nor, given its increasingly narrow user base, a place where our Government needs to be".
"But we must go further and root out these malign influences on our politics, tightening our rules on online transparency, the foreign funding of campaigns, and the regulation of disinformation," he wrote.
Jonathan Brash, Labour MP for Hartlepool, warned about the real-world dangers: “I'm concerned, as I'm sure many, many people are, that the rhetoric now that is being platformed in places like X could actually lead to genuine harm coming to ordinary human beings.”
However, he told PoliticsHome it would be difficult to draw the “line in the sand” between free speech and inciting violence.
“There needs to be a more streamlined and clear line of accountability within government to tackle this head-on,” he said.
“The fact that there's a lot of discussion and not necessarily a lot of action speaks to the problem. If we were in a totalitarian state, the solution would be easy. We would just shut it down, and no one would have access to it, and we would curtail free speech. But the reason it's so hard is because we don't want to do any of those things.”
X has been approached for comment.
