Veep creator Armando Iannucci is taking aim at tech mogul Elon Musk after the billionaire was accused of fanning the flames of the U.K.’s far-right movement, which has led to nights of riots, looting and vandalism.
On Wednesday, police were told to brace for over 100 anti-migration protests with more than 6,000 riot police deployed across the country. Employees at Sky’s west London campus were issued a memo to stay home or leave work early as a protest was planned for nearby Brentford.
Instead, anti-racism rallies took hold of Britain’s streets and deterred further violence. In Brighton, Walthamstow, Liverpool, Oxford and Bristol, thousands of people were on the street holding up signs such as: “Refugees welcome here” and “Hate not welcome here.” A few serious incidents still occurred, but it was largely a peaceful night.
The chief of London’s police force, the metropolitan police, said it had been “a successful night.” Mark Rowley told the BBC: “We put thousands of officers on the street and I think the show of force from the police and frankly the show of unity from communities, together defeated the challenges that we’ve seen.”
The unrest began after the stabbing of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, England, on July 29. False claims circulated on social media that the suspect, now known to be 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, was an asylum seeker. Rudakubana, whose parents emigrated from Rwanda, was a British national born in Wales.
Minorities, in particular, have been the target of the violence. Over 400 arrests have been made as U.K. Prime Minister promised perpetrators would “face the full force of the law,” later adding that “we will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities”.
But Elon Musk emerged as an apparent instigator in the unrest, by allowing disinformation to spread so rapidly on his platform, X (formerly Twitter). Far-left politicians in the U.K. have began to call for X to be banned after Musk replied to a post of a riot in Liverpool that “civil war is inevitable.”
When a Southport mosque was attacked as part of Islamophobic attacks, Musk responded to Starmer’s comment about protecting Muslim communities: “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?”
Glasgow-born screenwriter and producer Armando Iannucci has been vocal on X about Musk’s posts. The Emmy-winning satirist, who also created British political sitcom The Thick of It, responded to photos of the anti-racism crowds: “Civil society, not civil war. Do please repost, #Elon”.
He quote-posted another photo, showing a handful of far-right protestors surrounded by hundreds of peaceful demonstrators, with “You seeing this, @ElonMusk?” He told the X owner earlier in the week: “You have no idea what our wonderful country is really like and are, like the planet Mars, both toxic and empty.” Musk has not, so far, responded.
The PM has blamed social media for the escalation in the aftermath of the stabbings. “Let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them: violent disorder was clearly whipped up online. That is also a crime. It is happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.”
Iannucci told The Hollywood Reporter in July that his X feed has become “full of weirdness”.
“Certain people make a lot of noise and we take the noise seriously, and therefore think they must have a wide following, Iannucci said. “And that’s not necessarily the case. It’s just that they’re very good at being loud. We mustn’t fall for that just because we hear them at full volume.”
