The Fake Patriotism of the British Muskovites
How quickly the right-wing press, Conservatives and Reform UK have jumped on Elon Musk’s disruptive bandwagon shows how fundamentally – and cynically – British politics has changed, says Adam Bienkov
This article was first published in the February 2025 print edition of Byline Times. Subscribe to our monthly news magazine by clicking the link below
During the EU Referendum campaign, the majority of the British press united in urging the nation to ‘break free’ from Europe.
The Sun newspaper, which had spent years lamenting the influence of ‘foreign bureaucrats’ in UK politics, was typical in urging voters to “BeLeave” in our independence.
“Vote Leave, and we will reassert our sovereignty”, read the paper’s eve of referendum editorial, as it told voters to embrace “a future as a self-governing, powerful nation”.
At the core of its argument was what it described as the “basic principle” that “we are governed by politicians we elect or eject every five years” rather than unaccountable “foreign” powers.
But fast-forward to 2025 and the established media’s belief in Britain’s independence seems to have suddenly vanished.
Faced with an incoming US President who hasn’t ruled out seizing Britain’s NATO and Commonwealth neighbours in Greenland and Canada by force, and his aide Elon Musk launching an overt campaign to overthrow the British Government, most of Fleet Street has rowed solidly behind the interlopers.
“Donald Trump says he wants to buy Greenland,” observed Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn. “Elon Musk wants to buy Liverpool FC, according to his dad. But why stop there, chaps?” Have I got a deal for you? They should club together and buy the United Kingdom instead.”
Littlejohn, who files his flag-waving columns from his home in Florida, was not the only member of the British press embracing the abandonment of Britain’s sovereignty.
“Anyone out there want to buy Britain?” asked Jeremy Clarkson in The Times. “Because whoever you are, you’ve got my vote.”
Such open surrender has been found right across the British press in recent weeks.
Faced with a foreign billionaire threatening to use his vast wealth to buy up our national politics, while launching an extensive disinformation campaign against the UK Government, the established media’s previous belief in ‘sovereignty’ has evaporated into the cold air blowing across the Atlantic.
Vying for Musk’s Approval
At media briefings with the Prime Minister’s spokesman, journalists at previously tub-thumping ‘patriotic’ publications, have united in echoing Elon Musk’s grooming gang demands.
These demands, which originated in far-right conspiracy theories about the ‘Great Replacement’ and ‘rape genocide’, have also been embraced by the Opposition.
Rather than stand up for the integrity of our domestic democracy, Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch quickly joined Musk’s side, declaring herself a huge admirer of the X (formerly Twitter) owner, while insisting that her party would “compete” for billionaire donations with Reform UK.
Her Shadow Justice Secretary, Robert Jenrick, whose own Conservative leadership campaign was funded by untraceable cash routed through a British Virgin Islands company, was similarly complicit. Echoing Musk’s grooming gang claims, Jenrick claimed that “the most appalling crimes from predominantly British-Pakistani men were legalised”, and that the scandal “started with the onset of mass migration. Importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women”.
Asked by Byline Times whether she agreed, Badenoch’s spokesman said only that “culture matters”. That a supposedly mainstream political party should act in such an irresponsible way is difficult to comprehend – just months after thousands of far-right rioters took to the streets across the UK.
Unfortunately, such recklessness didn’t end there. Pressed on whether Badenoch believed it was right for Elon Musk’s favourite far-right criminal, ‘Tommy Robinson’, to be in prison, the spokesman again refused to say. He was jailed last year for contempt of court.
There are good reasons for the spokesman’s reticence. An earlier refusal by Reform Leader Nigel Farage to back Robinson had led to Musk publicly calling for his replacement. By contrast, Badenoch’s allies gloried in Musk’s continued sharing of her tweets to his hundreds of millions of followers.
The unedifying spectacle of supposedly patriotic politicians and publications scrabbling for approval from Musk reached its peak at the start of the year when the Trump advisor turned his attention to the Government’s Safeguarding Minister, Jess Phillips. Phillips, who has campaigned tirelessly for the survivors and victims of sexual violence and grooming for many years was branded a “rape genocide apologist” by Musk in a series of highly inflammatory and defamatory posts. These tweets – which reached tens of millions of people – resulted in Phillips receiving a barrage of serious threats, just years after one of her own close colleagues and friends, Labour MP Jo Cox, was murdered on the streets by a far-right terrorist.
Yet, rather than stand up for their colleague under the threat of serious violence, the Conservative and Reform parties remained firmly on Musk’s side, with Badenoch’s spokesman telling Byline Times that she remained a big “fan” of the X owner, despite his attacks on Phillips.
Even Farage remained loyal to the man he described as his “hero”, insisting that he was working hard to reconcile with Musk, who is reportedly considering donating up to $100 million to his party.
The Reform Leader’s sudden concern about sexual violence has questionable origins. When it was revealed last year that his own party colleague James McMurdoch had previously spent 21 days in a young offenders institution for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Farage defended him, saying such actions should now be “forgiven”.
And while the former Brexit Party Leader continued to tour the TV studios to echo Musk’s ‘concerns’ about grooming gangs, neither he nor any of his Reform colleagues turned up to a parliamentary debate on protecting women and girls from violence.
Of course, the persuasive power of extreme wealth over British politics has always existed. Politicians of all stripes have long competed to gain the favour of billionaire Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, along with other overseas-based newspaper barons.
But, while Murdoch would be careful to sneak into the White House and Downing Street through the back doors, Musk’s campaign to take control of Western governments is being conducted entirely out in the open. And while UK politicians and publications used to condemn such oligarchical politics when it was being pursued in places such as Russia, they now remain silent when it is being conducted on our own shores.
In many ways, the sheer openness of Elon Musk’s transactional relationship with right-wing politicians and media organisations in the UK has been a highly educational moment. Freed from the pretence of being motivated by patriotism or principle, Britain’s budding Muskovites can now be seen exactly for who they really are.
Because the truth is that far from wanting us to gain our ‘independence’ from foreign influence, much of Britain’s British political and media establishment has instead been acting as cheerleaders for the biggest foreign interference campaign ever launched against the UK.
