Responding to Elon Musk’s latest post on X in which he suggested that America should “liberate the people of Britain” and overthrow the government, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:
People have had enough of Elon Musk interfering with our country’s democracy when he clearly knows nothing about Britain. It’s time to summon the US ambassador to ask
why an incoming US official is suggesting the UK government should be overthrown.This dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric is further proof that the UK can’t rely on the Trump administration, and it’s in our national interest to rebuild trade and security ties with our allies in Europe.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Weekly Road Report - West End Ward #dundeewestend
Remembering Don Cupitt and his television series The Sea of Faith
How to improve the regulation of political polling - The Week in Polls
Why the government are getting it wrong on local government reorganisation
Rwanda scheme ICT costs revealed
John Mc
Simon R
David Evans
David Raw
21 Comments
I am pleased with the way Ed Davey is getting out in front on this issue, and using it to emphasise the need to be much closer to Europe.
We were right about Brexit and should say so.
Though I take Ed Davey’s point, I would have a great deal more sympathy with those who say that Musk should butt out of British politics if British politicians, establishment figures, and media outlets, had not, over the last 8 or so years made quite so many very loud and public statements regarding the internal affairs of the United States and their head of state… the sort of comments that would have us screaming blue murder if they were directed to our own country. So many were so carried away in all the excitement, when they should have been a lot more careful.
It will be interesting to see if the threats to various British politicians – that they could be summoned before Congress to explain why they believe they have the right to threaten US citizens for expressing their constitutional 1st amendment rights – will be carried out.
On the issue of Europe raised by Mohammed it will be fascinating to see how things develop over the next year or so. I could well envisage severe tariffs being placed on the EU, and also on any countries that support the EU establishment. Currently we are well insulated from these type of actions as our exports to the US are largely in the form of services rather than goods… but if we were try being gobby, well… The EU is now very dependent on US lpg, Qatar has been quietly growling about refusing to sell to the EU if they attempt to impose any climate levies on imports, and, the populist movement in the EU is growing quickly too. Getting closer to the EU could even be a nail in our coffin… we need fewer knee jerk responses and more chess.
As an addendum I should point out that Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he is now going to fire the content moderation teams, and is moving the business to Texas (more Republican) and intends to stand alongside Donald Trump to “work with President Trump to push back against foreign governments going after American companies to censor more”.
Nick Clegg gone, and now Trump, Musk and Zuckerberg all together and going to war… no, I really don’t want to be anywhere near the EU!
……Ed Davey says US Ambassador should be summoned to explain Musk’s “liberating Britain” comment….
Please god, No! Why feed the troll?
I too am pleased that Sir Ed has stood up for his (and my) principles. Those on the right, extreme or otherwise, seems to have no issue with doing this, so why should we? I’m afraid that I profoundly disagree with with expats @ 5.42pm. We are in this position in part because people such as Farage have not been robustly challenged when they tell lies.
@Adam:
The fundamental difference (apart from not owning a social media platform to impose our opinions on anyone) is that the UK politicians and commentators you mention aren’t government officials or soon-to-be government officials. So they’re not bound by diplomatic protocol and whatever they say is unlikely to be a threat to US interests. Ed Davey can say what the Castlemaine he likes about US politics; as the leader of a minor opposition party here in the UK, he is largely unknown over there. It would be like Rep. Joe Schmo of the 47th Congressional District of Maryland (for the avoidance of doubt, I made him up) calling for a change of UK government. No-one here would notice.
The idea that those of us not in government should be bound by diplomatic protocol seems utterly strange. It’s only government ministers and officials who need be careful what they say. Even Labour backbenchers can (or should be able to) say what they like about Trump.
Elon Musk is a man who is extremeley close to the incumbent president of the USA, and will be head of a government department. It is scary that a man like this is able to suggest the UK should be attacked by the USA. This is very worrying. As many in the comment section are saying, we need to closer alignment with Europe, if for nothing else but the safety of the UK. I also don’t understand how surposed British patriots support this man. Ed needs to continue fighting for this cause.
@ Alex
“Ed Davey can say what the Castlemaine he likes about US politics; as the leader of a minor opposition party here in the UK, he is largely unknown over there. It would be like Rep. Joe Schmo of the 47th Congressional District of Maryland (for the avoidance of doubt, I made him up) calling for a change of UK government. No-one here would notice.”
So is it “good one Ed Davey for speaking up”, or is it “he’s just a minor leader of a minor party”… it can’t be both at the same time.
@krissib 7th Jan ’25 – 7:19pm I’m afraid that I profoundly disagree with with expats @ 5.42pm. We are in this position in part because people such as Farage have not been robustly challenged when they tell lies….
I seem to remember that a previous leader of ours ‘challenged’ Farage to a debate; a debate that ‘fed the troll’..
@Adam
Of course it can be both at the same time.
If Ed Davey called for the overthrow of the US Government, he would rightly be ignored as a minor leader of a minor party, which in US terms he is.
If Ed Davey calls for the US Ambassador to be invited for a meeting without coffee to explain why a powerful figure close to the future US President is calling for the overthrow of the UK Government, he is acting as one would expect from the leader of the second largest opposition party in the UK Parliament, and good for him.
Musk’s preposterous rhetoric reflects the politics of the plutocracy that is now running the USA.
The removal of fact-checking from Meta products is a further example of the increasingly open bigotry that is now being allowed to run riot in social media under the misleading claim that it is “free speech”. Meta’s policy explicitly now allows users of Meta products to describe LGBTQI+ people as “mentally ill”.
The UK and the EU need to work together to ensure that our laws on hate speech are properly policed on social media platforms owned by these far-right American billionaires.
The Clegg v Farage debates that @expats alludes to were indeed a mistake, principally because they were on Farage’s preferred battleground and on something that was irrelevant to the European Parliamentary election campaign in which they were held. The European Parliament legislates on matters relating to the EU as a whole; accordingly whether the UK wanted to be a member of the EU was never part of its competence and should not have been being debated there.
At the time Farage was a minor loudmouthed politician and the warning “do not feed the troll” would have applied. Now we’re beyond that stage with both Farage and Musk. Musk in particular is poised to be a key player in the incoming US administration and will have to be faced down when he tries to interfere in UK internal affairs from his diplomatic and internet bully pulpits.
The threat from Trump goes far beyond our narrow interests. In cloaking his territorial ambitions (Canada, Greenland, Panama) behind claims about enhancing “national security” he’s borrowing from Netanyahu’s playbook. Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza was the canary in the mine for those who believed in things like the Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention, and that canary is well and truly dead.
Unlike the Americans, who elect a sovereign President, we have a parliamentary democracy. With our current government led by a prime minister happy for the UK to act as a US-ruled vassal state and turn a blind eye to Israel’s illegal war against the civilians in Gaza, it has never been more important for Parliament to assert its authority over the executive and demand action to cut all ties with Israel until it bows to the rule of international law.
@ Nick
I take your point.
Mine however is that he’d better hope that he remains in authority and never gets into an important position… as I think David Lammy is about to find out.
The reality is though that, ever since Winston Churchill stripped naked before FDR in the Oval office, the UK and US establishments have been so intertwined at military, intelligence, and even civil service levels, and have been since WWII that in reality there is nothing that can really be done. It’s all just noise, and most people see through it.
Trump and his gang will continue to deflect attention from the reality of whatever is happening in their USA by making inflammatory statements on issues they have no real intent to pursue.
Come on people wake up, Step back and, yes, stop feeding the beasts.
Worse even than Trump. What an evil tosser!!! Just seeing him makes me vomit.
@Adam: It’s unclear what US tech giants, whether or not they are supported by the US government, can do to counter European regulations. If they wish to operate in the EU, they have to follow EU rules. This applies whichever US state they have their HQs. Sure, they can lobby the EU to follow US-style corporatarian “might is right” law, but they’re already doing that. Or the US government could threaten a trade war, but it also plans that anyway, so it’s priced in and it’s debatable who would lose out most from such an action. The UK needs to be closer to the EU to protect itself from the spectre of biased social media from the US.
@Adam: I would hope that if the Lib Dems do get into power while Trump or an equivalent is in the White House, then we would take a more robust approach to relations with the US than the present government appears to be doing. Obviously any direct criticism of the US government or its internal policies would be unwise, but here it’s the President-elect’s lackey who is breaching diplomatic protocol by criticising the UK government, so a “meeting without coffee” with the US ambassador would be an absolutely proper response. And if President-elect Trump bears the sort of grievances that you suggest, then it means he is an unreliable ally anyway.
Diplomatic etiquette is based on gentlemen’s agreements, but these only work when all those involved behave like gentlemen. The UK gains nothing, either internally or on the world stage, from acting as the sidekick of the playground bully, regardless of the intertwining of past relationships.
@ Alex
“Diplomatic etiquette is based on gentlemen’s agreements, ”
But Alex, can an American be a gentleman? It could be argued that that the American rebellion was merely an excuse to repudiate The Royal Proclamation of 1763 (and this argument has been made by one of the curators at the British Museum, sorry can’t remember his name offhand), which is hardly a gentlemanly act.
Or maybe that’s a bit Old High Tory on this Whiggish site… the philosophical and political ancestors of which were often much in support of the rebels.
Sorry, too much rum!