One of Kent's newest MPs has seen her offensive tweet shared to almost 200m followers via Elon Musk.

Yesterday, Rochester and Strood MP Lauren Edwards (Lab) issued an apology about resurfaced posts from 2009 in which she said “I want these f****** Estonian r****ds out of my flat now!”.

The tweets were found by users and quickly picked up attention before they could be deleted.

Just before midday, Miss Edwards issued a statement in which she said she apologised for the remarks “wholeheartedly”.

In under 24 hours the apology had been viewed more than 5.6 million times - and has now been shared by the owner of the platform and the world’s wealthiest man Elon Musk.

This morning (August 9) he shared a screenshot which showed Miss Edwards’ apology and a quote tweet which attached an image of the offensive tweet about Estonians which sparked the online criticism.

At the time of writing, Mr Musk’s post has garnered five million views, 7,000 retweets, and nearly 5,000 replies in three hours.

The Labour Party has been approached regarding unconfirmed rumours suggesting Miss Edwards may face suspension for the tweets, but no official response has been given.

Over the last week Mr Musk has chosen to wade in on and and share his opinions on unrest in the UK.

He has been critical of Sir Keir Starmer and the new Labour government and their response to riots which have taken place across the country.

In particular, the X owner has accused the prime minister of allowing “two-tier policing”, using the hashtag “TwoTierKeir”.

The term “two-tier policing” has been used to suggest police have been more heavy handed with people on the right of the political spectrum than the left.

Elsewhere in Kent, a Labour councillor from Dartford appeared to make “inflammatory gestures” at a counter-protest calling for the throats of anti-immigration protesters to be cut in a video which appeared online.

Shortly after the Metropolitan Police announced a man had been arrested in relation to the incident on suspicion of “encouraging murder” and for an offence under the Public Order Act.

Cllr Ricky Jones, who represents Princes Ward in Dartford, was suspended by the Labour Party.

However the video in question was reshared on X by Nigel Farage, saying: “This man should be arrested. If not, we know there is two-tier policing. @metpoliceuk”

He later added: “This man is a Labour Councillor. Why has #TwoTierKeir not taken action?”

However other users replied and criticised Mr Farage, saying a man had been arrested and the councillor had been suspended - which they said proved the law was applied equally.

Elon Musk has received criticism over his X platform, formerly Twitter, with some accusing him allowing of far-right accounts and misinformation to spread since he took over in 2022.

Figures within the new Labour government have suggested social media platforms, particularly X/Twitter, will come under greater scrutiny for their role in the riots which the UK has seen over the past week and a half.

This led Musk to share posts claiming the UK’s government is acting like the Soviet Union in its “crackdown on free speech”.

It is understood that Miss Edwards has now deleted her X account.