Musk leads growing backlash against police for investigating Allison Pearson
Elon Musk and senior British politicians have led a growing backlash against police for investigating a social media post by a Telegraph journalist.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, Liz Truss, the former prime minister, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, and Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, have raised serious concerns after officers visited Allison Pearson’s home.
Pearson has told how officers from Essex Police visited on the morning of Remembrance Sunday to inform her that she was being investigated over a year-old post on X, formerly Twitter, which is now owned by Musk.
She said police told her she was being investigated over a “non-crime hate incident” and described the “Kafkaesque” refusal of officers to disclose the contents of the post in question.
Musk, the world’s richest man and a close ally of Donald Trump, weighed in to support the Telegraph writer. Posting on X, he wrote: “This needs to stop.”
The billionaire, who has been outspoken on free speech and the actions of the British police during the riots, labelled Sir Keir Starmer “two-tier Keir”, a reference to alleged “two-tier policing” that saw Right-wing protesters dealt with more harshly than Left-wing demonstrators.
Musk made the comments in response to footage showing rioters hurling missiles at a pub in Birmingham, some of whom were masked and holding Palestinian flags. The Space X owner asked: “Why aren’t all communities protected in Britain?”
Meanwhile, Mr Philp called on officers to stop attempts to “police thought”. The Conservative MP said: “The police should not be wasting time and resources targeting journalists or the public for simply expressing opinions.
“Only where the criminal threshold is met should police become involved. I do not think officers should be policing thought – only actual crimes that meet the criminal threshold.
“Freedom of expression must be protected, even where we disagree with the views being expressed. Police should concentrate on crime. Investigating opinions that are not criminal is totally unacceptable.”
Sir Iain said: “What we are seeing is the police force turning into the thought police. The police have far more important things to do than following up on someone’s concerns about what someone wrote a year ago.
“This is definitely George Orwell’s 1984, very Big Brother-ish. I feel sorry for the police, who seem to be so badly led that officers are forced into this nonsense. What the public wants is for them to crack down on shoplifting, violent threats and anti-social behaviour.
“If you want to know what hate is, that is hate. They should deal with that rather than targeting journalists whose job is to speak freely.”
In a tweet, Ms Truss claimed the incident was “yet another affront to free speech”, adding: “We must speak out and fight back against this appalling bullying of Allison Pearson.”
Mr Farage said: “On Remembrance Sunday of all days, when we remember those who fell for democracy and freedom of speech, it is outrageous that Allison Pearson had to face police officers on her doorstep as the result of a freely-expressed opinion.
“This is Orwellian in the extreme. I’m absolutely appalled that Allison and others like her have to live in fear for months without ever being told what has been said against them. People must be worried sick. We are very much in the territory of a thought crime here, where the accusers are called ‘victims’.”
A year before the police visit, Pearson had been frequently commenting on the October 7 massacre in Israel and the subsequent pro-Palestinian marches in London.
Essex Police said officers had opened an investigation under the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material allegedly “likely or intended to cause racial hatred”.
A police spokesman told The Telegraph: “We’re investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post, which was subsequently removed.
“An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act. As part of that investigation, officers attended an address on Sunday Nov 10 to invite a woman to attend a voluntary interview on the matter.”
Police have indicated that the alleged post is being looked into as a criminal matter.
In 2021, the Court of Appeal ruled that recording non-crime hate incidents was “plainly an interference with free speech”, with judge Dame Victoria Sharp stating that they were “likely to have a serious chilling effect on public debate”.
This followed a legal victory by Harry Miller, a former police officer, who challenged Humberside Police after the force recorded a non-crime hate incident against him for allegedly sharing a “transphobic” limerick on Twitter.
His initial legal failure in the High Court – and subsequent victory in the Court of Appeal – highlighted concerns about non-crime incidents.
Last year, Suella Braverman, then the home secretary, told police they should only log hate incidents that were below the criminal threshold if there was a serious risk of harm and not just because someone was offended.
She said: “We have been clear that, in recording so-called non-crime hate incidents, officers must always have freedom of expression at the forefront of their minds.”