Jess Phillips has delivered a seven-word take down of Elon Musk following his barrage of attacks – telling him to ‘get to Mars’.
The tech mogul has bombarded the Safeguarding Minister with a series of messages, resulting in her facing severe threats.
The 53-year-old owner of Twitter/X labelled her a “witch” and a “rape genocide apologist” despite her extensive work to combat sexual violence. His onslaught began after the Government decided against reopening a national inquiry into grooming gangs, opting instead to concentrate on practical measures.
When asked for her thoughts on Musk by Sky News, Phillips responded: “Just, you know… crack on with this ‘getting to Mars’. You know, Elon Musk is going to Elon Musk. I’ve got bigger and more important things to be thinking about.”
Reflecting on the distressing cases she has encountered, the Labour minister expressed how it is “painful to watch” such issues being manipulated as a “political football”, reports the Mirror.
She said he was trying to “silence women like me”.
Jess Phillips told Musk to ‘get to Mars’
She added: “My strongest feeling is that there is a huge furore about something a man, thousands of miles away, said about me that has led to an issue that I care so deeply about and have dedicated most of my working life and quite a lot of my personal life to making better and supporting victims, specifically of grooming gangs really directly.”.
“And it’s painful to watch it become a political football rather than an actual attempt to really do something.”
Ms Phillips has spoken out about the emotional toll of her work, recounting harrowing experiences in courtrooms: “You get very, very tired when you do this kind of work and I’ve sat in courtrooms with young girls because they’ll only speak if I’m sat there holding their hand. I’ve watched – I’ve literally had a young woman, groomed and raped and she was pregnant, miscarry to the point where it marked my shoes because I was in the room with her and taking her to hospital while that was happening.”
She expressed frustration over the lack of attention given to the victims: “And none of their voices, no care was given about these women. And these sudden demands being made, whether it’s by the Conservative Party or ridiculous statements that are false being made about me and my government by a man, a thousand miles away is just really, really, really painful when you know what I know, when you’ve seen what I’ve seen.”
Ms Phillips emphasised that the survivors deserve much better: “And those young women deserve considerably better.”
She also criticised Elon Musk for his comments, stating he is trying to “silence women like me” and accusing him of ignorance on the issue of grooming gangs: “The erratic tech billionaire ‘knows absolutely nothing’ about grooming gangs.”
Her interview with ITV News last night revealed the impact of such interventions on her life: “The intervention had ‘turned her world upside down.'” She lamented the distraction caused by uninformed opinions: “The thing that annoys me most about it is it takes up so much bandwidth of my time from a man who knows absolutely nothing about the subject he’s talking about.”
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Phillips disclosed to ITV that her initial reaction was to support Oldham Council’s proposal for a Home Office Inquiry into the abuse that occurred in the town.
However, she expressed her desire to establish a process in Oldham similar to the one previously seen in Telford’s locally led inquiry, which she described as “the only one that has ever done anything to actually change the council, the local police, the local CPS.”
She dismissed the idea of a Home Office led inquiry, stating: “That is not what I have seen work. I have seen the alternative work, and so I will base my decisions on evidence, not on a very rich man in America.”
When questioned about her personal safety, she admitted: “Of course I worry about my safety. Of course, and you have to, anyone who has worked in the fields of violence against women and girls.”
She added: “Risk is dynamic and I have to take account of the risks in my life and this is one of them currently.”
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