Several British police forces are scaling back their presence on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, while one has abandoned it altogether, over concerns that it no longer aligns with their “values”.
Reuters contacted all 45 police forces in the UK, including British Transport Police, to ask about their engagement with X, which is owned by Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO who funds various conservative political groups and ring-wing causes, and has this year endorsed the Republican nominee for President of the United States, Donald Trump.
A total of 33 forces responded to the Reuters study, providing details about their social media policy.
10 forces who collectively police nearly 13 million people said they were actively reviewing their presence on X, while 13 said they frequently reviewed all their social media platforms.
Of these 23 forces, six said they were cutting their presence to just one or two X accounts.
West Yorkshire Police said they were seeking to understand whether X would still help them reach their target audience and build “trust in the community”.
Gwent Police said they were reviewing X because of questions about “the tone of the platform and whether that is the right place to reach our communities”. All Gwent’s individual officer accounts have been removed.
Also in Wales, North Wales Police, serving nearly 700,000 residents, stopped using X completely in August.
“We … felt that the platform was no longer consistent with our values and therefore we have withdrawn our use of it,” Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman said, adding that they would continue to monitor and review alternative platforms.
It’s unclear which values North Wales police are referring to, although Musk has in the past shown support for critics of transgender ideology, many of whom continue to be harassed by UK police forces as if they were breaking the law.
Following completion of his takeover in April 2022, for instance, he announced that he intended to grant an Amnesty to all gender-critical feminists that had been censored by Twitter’s previous owners simply for stating biological truths, or raising important questions about women-only spaces.
True to his word, the company then welcomed back a number of gender-critical commentators, including women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen, comedy writer Graham Linehan, journalist Meghan Murphy, barrister Dennis Kavanagh, and philosopher Holly Lawford-Smith.
Musk was also highly critical of Sir Keir Starmer’s response to the Southport riots earlier this year, during which he claimed Britain was headed towards civil war.
The Tesla CEO targeted the Prime Minister online, reposting a video appearing to show police officers arresting a man for making offensive comments on Facebook with the caption: “Arrested for making comments on Facebook! Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?”
When the Prime Minister posted on X: “We will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities,” Musk replied, saying: “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?”
He then proceeded to call the Prime Minister #TwoTierKeir in reference to accusations that police were favouring some protesters over others.
After it emerged that Musk hadn’t been invited to the Labour government’s investment summit in September, the richest man in the world wrote on X: “I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they’re releasing convicted paedophiles in order to imprison people for social media posts.”
News that police forces across England and Wales are rethinking their use of the Musk-owned social media platform comes as concerns are raised about police impartiality and the perception of police impartiality in the UK.
The concept of police impartiality is set out in the oath officers swear and in the Police Regulations 2003 and the Code of Ethics.
All police officers in England and Wales swear allegiance to the Crown through this oath, which includes swearing that they will act with impartiality. The impartiality duty is also set out in police regulations but only within the section covering restrictions on private lives.
However, there is currently no national guidance that describes precisely what the impartiality duty means or covers, or what it doesn’t cover. Nor is the impartiality duty addressed in the College of Policing’s ‘Vetting Code of Practice’ or vetting of authorised professional practice (APP), particularly in relation to membership of any groups or associations, or in relation to a person’s conduct.
The House of Lords considered police impartiality in the case of Champion v Chief Constable of Gwent Constabulary [1990]. When giving his judgment in the case, Lord Griffiths commented that the object of the impartiality duty was: “to prevent a police officer doing anything which affects his impartiality or his appearance of impartiality. Impartiality means favouring neither one side nor the other but dealing with people fairly and even-handedly.”
Lord Griffiths also stated: “There are in my view great dangers in isolating the police from the community and every encouragement should be given to police officers to play a full part in the life of the community in which they live.”
In September 2023, and following repeated failures by the British Police to uphold Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the right to freedom of expression, the then Home Secretary Suella Braverman commissioned His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) to inspect police involvement in politically contested matters, and consider whether the police allow politics, activism or impartiality, in several guises, to unduly influence them.
HMICFRS’s report, which was published in September 2024, concluded that one “systemic problem” was a near-total absence of any definition, guidance or judicial consideration of impartiality insofar as it relates to policing.
As a result, it recommended that by 31 July 2024, the Home Office, Police Staff Council, College of Policing and National Police Chiefs’ Council should work together to update the Police Regulations 2003, the Police Staff Council’s standards of professional behaviour for police staff, and associated guidance so that they set out in clear terms what the impartiality duty means for officers and staff, both on and off duty; and provide clear guidance on what the impartiality duty means in relation to contested or politicised causes.
Perhaps as a quick-fix they could just reacquaint themselves with Robert Peel’s nine principles of policing, which form the basis of policing by consent. Principle five states that officers should be committed “to seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy.”
