Right-wing populists should not claim ownership of the truth: the facts are out and Elon Musk has been busted.

Musk, via the former social media platform turned right-wing propaganda site X, has been trying to accuse the UK’s Labour government of historical support for grooming gangs involved in child sexual abuse.

He chose his target well because right-wingers in this country already start foaming at the mouth whenever the subject arises, with its allegations about Muslim gangs raping white girls, about Keir Starmer – then Director of Public Prosecutions – allowing it (and turning a blind eye to the crimes of Jimmy Savile), and – it seems – a Home Office memo released under Gordon Brown’s premiership ordering police to look away.

It is this alleged memo that seems to have been the hinge on which Musk’s claims turned. As with many of the claims discussed on This Site lately, there’s just one problem:

No such memo was ever written.

Here’s the ever-reliable Victoria Derbyshire:

👇https://t.co/Z7mvJDBWVv

— Victoria Derbyshire (@vicderbyshire) January 9, 2025

I’m going to quote the article in some detail – because it provides it. Here are the facts:

A wave of social media posts – including some amplified by Mr Musk – allege that a 2008 Home Office document advised police not to intervene in child grooming cases because victims had “made an informed choice about their sexual behaviour”.

In one post, which has received over 25 million views, Mr Musk alleged that “Gordon Brown sold those little girls for votes”.

But BBC Verify has carried out extensive searches of Home Office circulars issued across that period and found no evidence that any document containing this advice exists.

[Gordon] Brown – who was prime minister in 2008 – has called the allegations “a complete fabrication” and the Home Office says there “has never been any truth” to them.

It seems Mr Brown may have good reason to open a lawsuit against Musk for defamation, don’t you think?

The article continues:

The original unfounded claim about a Home Office circular to police seems to stem from an interview Nazir Afzal – the former Crown Prosecution Service chief prosecutor for north-west England – gave to the BBC on 19 October 2018. He now admits that he had not seen any such circular himself, despite apparently stating its existence as fact.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, he told presenter Carolyn Quinn at the time:

“You may not know this, but back in 2008 the Home Office sent a circular to all police forces in the country saying ‘as far as these young girls who are being exploited in their towns and cities we believe they have made an informed choice about their sexual behaviour and therefore it’s not for you police officers to get involved in”.

Although the programme is no longer available to listen to on the BBC’s website, a version has been uploaded to YouTube. BBC Verify has also accessed the programme through the BBC’s in-house archives to confirm the audio is genuine.

Speaking to BBC Verify, Mr Afzal clarified his position admitting that he has never seen any circular with the form of words that he used in his 2018 interview.

Instead he now says he was referring to police officers who had told him some officers had misinterpreted instructions in a circular sent by the Home Office.

Mr Afzal pointed us to Home Office circular 017/2008 , externalwhich is about the police’s powers under the 1989 Children’s Act.

However, the words “informed choice” do not appear anywhere in the text, nor is the circular about child grooming gangs.

It does contain, however, a section on how to judge significant harm to a child. “It is important always to take account of the child’s reactions, and his or her perceptions, according to the child’s age and understanding,” it reads.

It seems difficult to understand how any police officer could misconstrue this section in the way Mr Afzal described in his 2018 interview

He told BBC Verify he was “paraphrasing what I thought that meant to them”, when he gave his Radio 4 interview.

Asked how officers could have interpreted circular 17/2008 in this way, Mr Afzal said:

“You’re right, it doesn’t stack up. It doesn’t give an excuse or explanation, but I can’t give you any other circular.”

BBC Verify also asked Mr Afzal if he could put us in touch with any of the officers that may have misinterpreted the circular in way he described, but he was unable to do this.

Mr Afzal’s claim was not a one off. One year before his 2018 interview, Mr Afzal wrote an article for the International Business Times, external where he also stated the claim as fact.

Given this information, it seems likely that either Mr Afzal was mistaken in a way that tends towards incompetence – he should have verified the information he was providing before putting it into the public domain – or he was deliberately mischievous.

BBC Verify tells us it researched the Home Office’s guidance on this matter very thoroughly:

The Home Office says all memos and circulars to police forces are published online in the National Archives. They are also kept in the library of the College of Policing website.

BBC Verify searched all the circulars for 2008 and could find no reference to “informed choice” or “child prostitute” or any phrase similar to the one cited in the social media posts.

Of the 32 circulars listed on the National Archives website for 2008, only one – 017/2008 – falls under the category “child abuse”. We have also searched circulars for 2007, 2009 and 2010 and found no references to “informed choice”. We also searched for other phrases in Mr Afzal’s original statements and variations from later social media posts – for example “get involved”, “sexual behaviour” and “lifestyle choice” – and found no occurrences.

There have been several Freedom of Information requests regarding a supposed memo or circular with the “informed choice” phrase, but no police force has found any trace of such a communication.

There are some documents in which certain keywords are mentioned, but – well, see for yourself:

We were able to find a circular from 2009 that links to a webpage that further links to a document on child sexual exploitation released by the Department for Children, Schools and Families that mentions the phrase “informed choice”. It is not an instruction to police and the context it appears in is emphasising situations where local agencies might need to report sexual activity in order to protect children “unable to make an informed choice”.

There were circulars in 2007 and 2010 that contained the phrase “child prostitute”. The first was in connection with some technical changes to offences like “controlling a child prostitute”. The second again dealt with technical changes but this circular on prostitution, external also said: “In short, any steps taken, whether relating to criminal proceedings or not, should be designed to protect the child from continuing sexual exploitation and abuse.”

The term “child prostitute” was taken out of the law in 2015 as it could imply that children could consent to abuse.

So the message is clear:

In a statement to BBC Verify, the Home Office said it had never instructed police not to go after grooming gangs.

That’s not to say that individual police forces or groups within those organisations didn’t unilaterally decide not to investigate or prosecute grooming gangs for reasons of their own. We know that corruption and crime – particularly sex crime – have been pursued by then-serving officers of the Metropolitan Police in the past, and it is entirely possible that officers in other forces have the same weaknesses.

So This Writer cannot say there should not be an inquiry into whether allegations of grooming gangs carrying out child sexual exploitation have been properly investigated.

But it is clear that allegations that members of a Labour government, past or present, tried to hinder any such investigations are false.

Elon Musk should apologise shamefacedly.

And this also shows the danger of a right-wing populist like Musk setting himself up as an arbiter of truth. Thanks to him, social media posts amplifying his false claims have been read tens of millions of times, and are likely to have caused a huge amount of damage to the reputations of Labour politicians, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police.

But we don’t see Musk stepping back and admitting he was wrong to do what he did, and agreeing that he should not use X in this hugely biased way to attack people because he doesn’t agree with their politics.

He’ll carry on. And he’ll probably do more damage next time.

And now we have Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, planning to do exactly the same thing – politically manipulating his platform’s three billion users, with the threat of Donald Trump imprisoning him for life as his encouragement.

Watch the video clip of this article:

---

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:

The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here: