To think that Kier Starmer shouldn't be welcoming extremists into Britain?

I would say his political priorities put thanking British Parliament at the bottom of the pile. As is often the case, when was the public asked what they wanted in terms of who is welcome on British soil?

Are you selective about inflammatory posts, depending on who posts them? As you seem certain the riot posts were inflammatory, I take it you hold this racist to the same standard.

You'll wait a loooong time for his 'thanks'.

I still haven't come across his post thanking successive governments for making him their top priority. I see he's pleased to be reunited with his family but i have yet to see his thanks for all the efforts this gov has made to get him 'back'.

Are you ok with Lucy Connelly being jailed and this guy welcomed? If so, why?

As for thoughts on who gets arrested even the police are now pushing back on what is seen to be within their remit tg, so there is an issue.

Debated

He’s certainly lost no time in catching up on his social media and doing a bit of FB…

Is this man grateful to be here; is he down at the Job Centre looking to support his family? Is he heck.

I want the Govt and these loudmouth celebrities to tell us exactly why this man’s presence in the UK is a good thing. If he can exercise his freedom of speech to say he hates white people, wants to kill Jews, attack police officers’ families, attack Downing Street… then, ok, gloves off - let anyone post anything without politicians and said celebrities kicking off because it falls foul of their rather twisted priorities.

Exactly this. And why when he was delayed on and questions raised in Parliament, did not one person bring up his online threats at all?

It's insane that there was once a law that allowed this man to get British citizenship on the grounds that his mum was born here while his nan was briefly a student here. Absolutely insane. I'm sure him and his (suspiciously well fed-looking for a hunger striker of several months) will be pulling their best compo faces for a Guardian sob story within a few weeks.

Got any evidence? I Googled & found Lucy Connolly & 3-4 others but that was all. It's a myth that people in the UK are being jailed for expressing opinions on social media.

Agreed 💯

For me it's shone a light on the campaign to get this man to UK. Why was the MP John McDonnell having constituents raise this man's plight with him? Why were Olivia Colman and the other celebs so concerned about him?
Why was he successive Government's "top priority"?
I saw a Labour peer post that, until now, nobody had heard of him. I certainly hadn't. So why were so many people hell bent on getting him here?

It’s not just that.

A handful of people were quite rightly jailed after posting inflammatory messages during the riots in 2024.

Doubtless if it is in the public interest to prosecute someone for tweets posted 10-15 years ago then that is what will happen.

Thank you for explaining it. The remedial order in 2019 allowed this to happen, and was more permissive than it needed to be. There seems to have been a real naivety. It should bother us all that this man who sounded utterly contemptuous of British people and was an effective anti semite received an automatic right to be here.

Discrimination in terms of granting nationality is okay in my view. You should be very picky who gets these rights because revoking nationality is nearly impossible. It really is up to governments what rules they want. We are in my view too liberal on it, but this is like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. His views are repellent, but as a British citizen he will have every right to express them.

It would be interesting to know why this case was considered so significant by so many. There are British citizens across the world who do far less well in getting their cases resolved

Tbf people can see who ends up in jail and what has been posted.

...and I look forward to Mr el-Fattah being charged with the offences you mention.

Nobody in the UK has ever been "jailed for the crime of posting on social media". A few people have been convicted of offences such as sending malicious communications or inciting racial hatred.

Hansard again (promise this will be my last quote from there for now), debate about COP27, 9th Nov 2022.

..Keir Starmer, then leader of the opposition, responding to the Prime Minister of the day, Rishi Sunak...

"...may I start by raising the case of Alla Abd el-Fattah"......"he is a British citizen jailed for the crime of posting on social media and has been imprisoned in Egypt ...: (my emphasis).

I believe under the current government in the UK we've had a few "jailed for the crime of posting on social media".....

It doesn't operate when making an application under the rule he did, that's the whole point.

British citizenship law used to discriminate against women and unmarried fathers, and they couldn't pass their citizenship on in the same way as married fathers. That's now been fixed, but it wasn't retrospective. So El Fattah wasn't British until 2021 and had to make an application, but if it had been his dad not his mum who was the British one he'd have been a citizen at birth. It would've been a right not a gift.

The whole reason they got rid of the good character test for these applications is because it did still treat the children of women and unmarried male British citizens worse than those of married British fathers. It was discriminatory.

I do get that, and generally discrimination against women in nationality laws is a bad thing. However in this instance, maybe it's the lesser of two evils.

From John McDonnell's speech in December 2024

Let me briefly offer a list of who has called for Alaa’s release, because the scale of support for him internationally is extraordinary. Our last four UK Prime Ministers have demanded his release. Also on the list are the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, the White House, the editorial boards of some of the most significant newspapers from across the globe, including The Guardian and The Washington Post, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and 14 Nobel laureates for literature—and that is just a few.

This is about as hypocritical as it can get. Emily Damari, a young British/Israeli citizen who happened to be female and Jewish, yet the government ignored her plight after she was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

One has to ask - is a Jewish woman's life worth so much less here in Britain than an Egyptian man who processes hate for us all?
He was in his 30s when he made his appalling statements, so I don't believe one word of his weasely apology.

Thanks for this @notimagain illuminating Indeed.

Indeed, in fact elsewhere in that 5 Dec 24 debate John McDonnell, who seems to be a keen advocate of El-Fattah states:

"Alaa’s case is becoming a cause célèbre, not just in this country but across the globe, as demonstrated by the number of significant figures and also by the number of constituents who are now contacting us about the case."

Some interested parties do seem to have been working very hard at keeping up the pressure on HMG and I guess others in Westminster.