Majority of British public believe Elon Musk having negative impact on UK politics, poll suggests
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Nearly half of those polled by Opinium say Elon Musk’s claims on grooming gangs are ‘unhelpful’. Just 12 per cent of the British public believes Elon Musk is having a positive impact with his interventions into UK politics, new polling suggests. The world’s richest man has used his social media site X to post a barrage of unceasing and often baseless attacks on Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour government to his 210 million followers in recent days, as he makes conspiratorial claims that they are somehow complicit in the grooming gangs scandal.
![[Nigel Farage had been hoping for a huge donation to Reform UK prior to Elon Musk suddenly turning on him]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/05/15/SEI233560534-copy.jpg)
After Sir Keir condemned the billionaire’s “lies and misinformation” and his attacks on safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, home secretary Yvette Cooper this week announced a new law recommended by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, and pledged further measures would follow.
![[Britain Politics]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/11/00/Britain_Politics_82743.jpg)
But Mr Musk – who is set to hold a major role in Donald Trump’s incoming US administration – is continuing to call for a national inquiry, a move which has now been backed by the Conservative Party and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, while Downing Street instead favours locally-led inquiries.
Some 53 per cent of more than 2,000 people surveyed by Opinium thought that Mr Musk was having a negative impact on British politics, compared to just 12 per cent who thought he was having a positive influence. On his comments about grooming gangs specifically, 47 per cent said they thought Mr Musk was being “unhelpful”, compared to just 26 per cent who thought the opposite.
