Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, a key adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, over the weekend branded the United Kingdom a "tyrannical police state" and endorsed calls for a new election.
"The people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state," Musk posted on X, quoting a post about an online petition calling for another election that has now reached 2 million signatures.
It came a day after the Musk reposted a graph showing U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's declining approval ratings, adding: "The voice of the people is a great antidote."
Musk has clashed for months with Starmer, who said in August that the country was on the verge of a "civil war" after violent unrest in the U.K.
Asked about the petition during an interview on ITV's "This Morning," Starmer said: "Look, I remind myself that very many people didn't vote Labour at the last election. I'm not surprised that many of them want a re-run. That isn't how our system works.
"There will be plenty of people who didn't want us in in the first place. So, what my focus is on is the decisions that I have to make everyday. The prime minister is focused on the issues that matter most to the British people."