What did Elon Musk say at far-right UK rally and did his remarks break the law?
Downing Street has condemned Elon Musk for using “dangerous and inflammatory” language at the nationalist protest organised by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson on Saturday,But will – or should – the X owner face any consequences?While he called for a “dissolution of parliament” and a “change of government”, the comments that attracted particular scrutiny were when he told the crowd: “This is a message to the reasonable centre, the people who ordinarily wouldn’t get involved in politics, who just want to live their lives,They don’t want that, they’re quiet, they just go about their business,“My message is to them: if this continues, that violence is going to come to you, you will have no choice,You’re in a fundamental situation here.
“Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you.You either fight back or you die, that’s the truth, I think.”There are two main statutes that apply to public pronouncements that encourage or incite violence in England and Wales.The first is the Public Order Act 1986, section 4 of which applies to “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” directed towards a person.But crucially it must carry the threat of provoking “immediate unlawful violence”.
The second is the Serious Crime Act 2007,It has provisions, which also cover Northern Ireland, that relate to encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence,But the person must believe the offence will be committed and that their act would encourage its commission,As Musk did not make any reference to a racial group, his comments did not fall within legislation covering such speech,Jonathan Hall KC, the UK independent reviewer of terrorism legislation and independent reviewer of state threat legislation, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Musk’s comments would not have broken the law.
“Politicians use martial language all the time, don’t they?” Hall said.“I mean, metaphors such as fights and struggles are pretty normal.And he was talking about it contingently, wasn’t he? He wasn’t saying: ‘Go out immediately.’”By contrast, police have said they are searching for a man who said on camera that “Keir Starmer needs to be assassinated” and “someone needs to shoot Keir Starmer”.The laws reflect the balance that the government maintains on free speech, which is a qualified right under the European convention of human rights, meaning it can be restricted for certain reasons.
While many will argue that Musk’s rhetoric will have harmful consequences, by, for example, requiring the threat of “immediate unlawful violence” parliament has set a threshold that inflammatory speech must cross to constitute criminality.Different countries set different limits on free speech.While the US often claims to have absolute free speech, Donald Trump’s administration has cracked down on pro-Palestinian voices as well as political opponents.Musk also claims to be a free speech absolutist but under his stewardship, X has been accused of censoring content to placate authoritarian governments in India and Turkey.Last year, Lucy Connolly was jailed for 31 months after admitting stirring up racial hatred when tweeting about hotels housing asylum seekers: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care … if that makes me racist so be it.
” That offence under section s19(1) of the Public Order Act requires the person to intend to stir up racial hatred or for that to be a likely consequence.Last month, the suspended Labour councillor Ricky Jones was found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder after he called at an anti-racism rally for far-right activists’ throats to be cut.The shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, like Reform UK, claimed the cases showed “two-tier justice” at work despite the fact that Connolly admitted her offence and Jones was acquitted by a jury.The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, has said the government should rule out any future contracts with Tesla and and block Musk from being granted a licence to supply energy to British homes.While Musk is no longer on great terms with Trump, the prospect of Starmer making such a move as the US president visits the UK seems remote.
Sky puts 900 roles at risk in shake-up to compete with US streaming services
Sky has put 900 roles at risk as the broadcaster continues to reshape its business in the streaming era.The company, which employs about 23,000 staff in the UK, expects the consultation process to result in about 600 roles being cut, with 300 redeployed.The latest round of cuts – the third in a little over 18 months – follows a series of product launches including the second iteration of the Sky Glass smart TV and budget-friendly Sky Glass Air.The Comcast-owned broadcaster is focused on improving existing services, and the cuts will hit Sky’s technology and product teams and related corporate functions.Sky has cut almost 3,500 roles since the beginning of last year as the broadcaster looks to move away from traditional satellite pay-TV to streaming-based services in the fight against US giants such as Netflix
How an engineering student turned red Solo cups into stylish sweaters: ‘A lot of trial and error’
Lauren Choi wanted to give plastic a second life. Her experiment turned into The New Norm, a sustainable textile startupIf you’ve been on a college campus in the last 30 years, you’ve likely come across red party cups. Made by brands like Solo and Hefty, the iconic cups are beloved by frats, crucial to drinking games like beer pong – and very difficult to recycle because of the type of plastic they’re made from.But Lauren Choi, an engineering student at Johns Hopkins University, saw an opportunity: she wanted to turn these problematic cups into fabric. In 2019, during her senior year, she led a team that built an extruder machine that could spin plastic waste into textile filaments
UK pay growth stays high – but Britons are feeling the pinch
Tuesday’s latest snapshot of the UK jobs market shows what is becoming a familiar pattern: a gradual slowdown in hiring, rising unemployment, yet with wage growth still uncomfortably high for policymakers.Whether because of Rachel Reeves’s £25bn national insurance increase, uncertainty over her upcoming budget, AI-related disruption or Donald Trump’s tariffs – or perhaps all four – companies seem to be cautious about taking on staff.In the July to August period, the number of vacancies in the economy was down by 119,000 on a year earlier.The unemployment data only runs to July – but it shows 2.3 unemployed people for each vacancy, up from 2
Big pharma firms have paused nearly £2bn in UK investments this year
Big pharmaceutical companies have ditched or paused nearly £2bn in planned UK investments so far this year, causing “suffering” to patients, as ministers gear up for discussions with Donald Trump amid a row over drug pricing.The government’s plan for the life science sector, a key pillar of the economy, has been thrown into disarray, after US drugmaker MSD’s shock announcement last Wednesday that it would scrap its £1bn London research centre. Two days later, AstraZeneca decided to halt a planned £200m expansion of its research facilities in Cambridge.Combined with a scrapped project by AstraZeneca in Liverpool and a shelved Eli Lilly lab in London, four projects worth more than £1.8bn have been pulled or paused this year
Healthy, safe and getting along with each other: Australia attempts to look beyond GDP to measure what matters
Too often economists reduce important issues, like prosperity, to a narrow set of indicators such as gross domestic product to measure national progress.Anything that boosts GDP is good, right?Well, no, of course not. Growing the size of the economy while wrecking the environment or making people miserable is no step forward.So a number of countries around the world – including the UK, Canada and New Zealand – have introduced alternative ways to measure wellbeing that goes “beyond GDP”.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailTreasury, under the direction of Jim Chalmers, established the “Measuring What Matters” framework in 2023 to track our progress towards “a more healthy, secure, sustainable, cohesive and prosperous Australia”
Trump official confirmed to Fed board but court rejects Lisa Cook removal bid
Senate Republicans voted on Monday to confirm a senior Trump official to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors as the White House raced to strengthen the US president’s control over the central bank ahead of its latest meeting.Hours before Fed policymakers convene for their September decision on interest rates, the Senate voted 48 to 47 to confirm Stephen Miran – already chair of Donald Trump’s council of economic advisers – as a governor.The vote concluded just as a US appeals court declined the Trump administration’s request to fire Lisa Cook, a governor appointed by Joe Biden, before the two-day policy meeting begins on Tuesday. The ruling from the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit means Cook may remain in her position during the policy meeting where the Fed is expected to cut interest rates.Miran’s appointment marks the first time in the history of the modern Federal Reserve, which stretches back almost a century, that a sitting member of the executive branch would also work at the highest levels of the central bank
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‘There’s a basic decency among British people’: Hope Not Hate’s Nick Lowles on how to defeat the far right