The Government remains on “high alert” for further far-right disorder and plans more meetings with social media companies this week, Number 10 said as a spat with Elon Musk rumbles on.
Asked for Sir Keir Starmer’s view about tweets by Mr Musk and Nigel Farage that he now poses the biggest threat to “free speech” in Britain, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said: “He would disagree with that completely.”
Last week, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle met representatives from TikTok, Facebook’s parent company Meta, Google and Mr Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) “to make clear their responsibility to continue to work with us to stop the spread of hateful misinformation and incitement”.
Further such contacts are due this week between Mr Kyle’s department and the social media companies, Sir Keir’s spokeswoman said, as people continue to be jailed for joining in the rioting and for inciting it online.
But she refused to engage further with Mr Musk, who has kept up a barrage of incendiary tweets about the unrest that swept England and Northern Ireland after darkly warning that it could presage “civil war”.
The Tesla founder was due later to hold a much-hyped online conversation with Donald Trump, who has his own history of inflammatory rhetoric including on the role of Islam in Britain.
Asked whether ministers were confident that the wide-scale unrest is now over, the No 10 spokeswoman said: “We welcome that there has been a de-escalation this weekend.
“But we’re certainly not complacent and remain on high alert,” she said, noting that Sir Keir has cancelled his summer holiday and will continue working between Downing Street and Chequers.
“We also recognise that the job is not done until people feel safe in their communities, but thanks to the work of our police officers, prosecutors … and judiciary, we have seen a swift response from the justice system.”
But the spokeswoman also indicated that rioters could be released from prison after serving 40% of their sentence, as part of the Government’s early release scheme designed to free up space in crammed jails.
“There’s no specific exclusion for the rioters, the scheme is as previously set out by the Justice Secretary,” she said, stressing that exclusions will continue to apply for people convicted of serious violence or terrorism.
