Keir Starmer is facing calls to strip Alaa Abd el-Fattah of his UK citizenship, days after the British-Egyptian dissident touched down in the UK following his release from an Egyptian jail.<\/p>\n
In the latest of his string of prison sentences, el-Fattah had been convicted in 2021 of \u201cspreading fake news\u201d for sharing a Facebook post about torture in the country. On Boxing Day, Starmer said he was \u201cdelighted\u201d by the return of the 44-year-old, a leading voice in Egypt\u2019s 2011 Arab Spring uprising. \u201cAlaa\u2019s case has been a top priority for my government since we came to office,\u201d the prime minister said on X.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n But the celebrations ground to a halt as old tweets resurfaced in which the activist appeared to endorse the killing of Zionists and the police. In a statement today, el-Fattah apologised \u201cunequivocally\u201d for the \u201cshocking and hurtful\u201d posts, most of which were written between 2010 and 2012 \u2013 but said some had been \u201ccompletely twisted\u201d.<\/p>\n The Week<\/p>\n Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \nSUBSCRIBE & SAVE\n<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Sign up for The Week’s Free Newsletters<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n His posts were \u201cdisgusting and abhorrent\u201d, said Kemi Badenoch in an op-ed for the Daily Mail<\/a>. He should have been given a \u201cfree and fair trial\u201d in Egypt, but \u201cthere ends my sympathy\u201d. It\u2019s one thing to work to secure someone\u2019s release from prison when they have been treated unjustly, but \u201cquite another to elevate them, publicly and uncritically, into a moral hero\u201d. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood<\/a> must now consider options including whether el-Fattah\u2019s passport should be \u201crevoked and he can be removed from Britain\u201d. Given the \u201creal-world harm\u201d that has resulted from \u201cantisemitic rhetoric\u201d in recent months, \u201ccalls for violence against Jews cannot be brushed aside\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no excuse for what he wrote,\u201d said Chris Philp, who was immigration minister under Priti Patel when el-Fattah was granted citizenship in 2021. People expressing these types of extremist views \u201chave no place in the United Kingdom\u201d, Philp told BBC Radio 4\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d.<\/p>\n Downing Street sources claim Starmer was \u201cunaware\u201d of el-Fattah\u2019s comments, said The Telegraph<\/a> in an editorial. \u201cReally? These were hardly secret.\u201d Surely a dossier would be compiled by the Foreign Office or MI6 \u201cabout an individual the state was investing so much time and effort into being released. Did he not read his briefs?\u201d There is also the question of why the last Conservative government granted him citizenship in the first place.<\/p>\n The \u201cblithe expressions of delight\u201d by three secretaries of state about el-Fattah\u2019s recent release reveal how \u201cstupid\u201d they are, said David Shipley on The Critic<\/a>. \u201cThese people have spent years not bothering or not caring to check el-Fattah\u2019s social media, an exercise which took people on Twitter less than a day.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no way this is just a Labour thing,\u201d said Dan Bloom on Politico<\/a>\u2019s <\/a>London<\/a> Playbook. \u201cTory and Labour ministers pushed for\u201d his release \u201cfor years\u201d. Yet \u201cit\u2019s hard to imagine a trickier situation\u201d for Starmer following his enthusiastic reaction. Labour ministers are among the voices now calling for el-Fattah to be stripped of his citizenship. The fiasco is a \u201ckick in the face\u201d following the recent antisemitic attacks at Bondi Beach<\/a>, said an unnamed senior Labour MP. And while aides are insisting Starmer didn\u2019t know about the tweets, said Bloom, \u201cthe question is\u2026 who did?\u201d<\/p>\n What next?<\/p>\n Revoking el-Fattah\u2019s citizenship would likely be a \u201cpretty big headache\u201d for Mahmood, said Bloom. The home secretary can take away people\u2019s passports on terrorism and national security<\/a> grounds, \u201cbut only rarely\u201d. Doing so \u201ccould end up in the courts\u201d, which \u201cmight look dimly on a government welcoming el-Fattah only to boot him out a few weeks later\u201d.<\/p>\n Explore More<\/p>\n