British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has defended his record and slammed those “spreading lies” following days of hostile attacks from Elon Musk over historical child rape crimes in northern England.

“Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are not interested in victims, they are interested in themselves,” Starmer said on Monday, without mentioning US billionaire Musk by name.

He was speaking during a National Health Service-related event in Surrey in the United Kingdom, responding to a question about Musk’s recent attacks on his handling of child rape cases.

Focusing on historical scandals involving paedophile grooming gangs that first emerged during Starmer’s tenure as director of public prosecutions, Musk has in recent days assailed him and other Labour figures over the issue.

Musk’s tirade, which included demands for a new public inquiry into the scandal, has prompted some UK opposition politicians to join in the criticism and calls for a new national probe.

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“We’ve seen this playbook many times, whipping up of intimidation and threats of violence, hoping that the media will amplify it,” Starmer said.

The prime minister highlighted that his safeguarding minister Jess Phillips had received serious threats. Musk described her in a post on his social media platform X last week as a “rape genocide apologist”.

Saying he was making a more general point rather than directly addressing Musk’s comments, Starmer said: “When the poison of the far-right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and others then in my book a line has been crossed.

“I enjoy the cut and thrust of politics, the robust debate that we must have, but that’s got to be based on facts and truth, not on lies,” he added.

The issue has long been seized upon by far-right figures, in particular the imprisoned Tommy Robinson, one of the UK’s best-known far-right agitators, whom Musk has praised.

In one of his X posts on Thursday, Musk claimed that Robinson was in prison “for telling the truth” and that “he should be freed.”

A 2014 inquiry found at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation in Rotherham, northern England, between 1997 and 2013.

Musk appears to be taking a keen interest in the British political scene since the left-of-centre Labour Party won a landslide election victory in July 2024, bringing an end to 14 years of Conservative rule.