Labour’s war with Elon Musk

How do you solve a problem like Elon? That is the dilemma facing Keir Starmer. Musk seems particularly exercised about the state of the UK and is quick to criticise the man he calls ‘two-tier Keir’. Using his platform X, he has weighed in on just about all the worst Labour news, from over-taxing farmers to mass-releasing prisoners while locking up others for speaking freely about the Southport riots. ‘Don’t expect him to be invited in for a fireside chat any time soon,’ says a minister.

Now, following Donald Trump’s re-election, another story could bring Starmer’s inner circle into a direct confrontation with Musk, plunging the PM’s top aide into a high-profile congressional investigation.

The latest controversy centres on a hitherto obscure group founded by Starmer’s new Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, back in 2018. The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) launched at a time when Jeremy Corbyn’s grip on Labour looked unshakable. Locked out of power, moderates diverted their energies outside the party. For 18 months, McSweeney was listed as a director of CCDH, which focused on combating left-wing anti-Semitism, encouraging a successful advertising boycott of the Corbynite Canary website. ‘Destroy the Canary or the Canary destroys us,’ McSweeney reportedly told Labour Together MPs. But in April 2020, he quit to work for Starmer, leaving the project to his ‘dear friend’ Imran Ahmed, a fellow former Labour staffer.

 The pandemic proved transformative in CCDH’s fortunes. Covid vaccines sparked a huge online debate and policy-makers embraced outlets waging the fight against ‘anti-vaccination’ propagandists. McSweeney’s outfit joined Whitehall meetings of the Counter Disinformation Policy Forum, tackling the ‘threat posed by Covid-19 mis- and disinformation’. Ahmed personally advised the UK government on ‘conspiracist “news” sites’. Grants from big charities such as the  Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust enabled the CCDH to set up a Washington non-profit in April 2021.