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

[Twiglets1]

Reported in The Telegraph today that Sir Keir Starmer has welcomed an alleged Islamist extremist, who labelled British people “dogs and monkeys” and called for Zionists to be killed, into the UK.

The Prime Minister said he was “delighted” that Alaa Abd el-Fattah had arrived from Egypt on Friday evening after a travel ban imposed by Cairo was lifted following lobbying by ministers.

Mr Abd el-Fattah, an activist with dual British-Egyptian citizenship, previously said that it was heroic to kill Zionists “including civilians”. He urged Londoners to burn Downing Street, told his supporters to kill police and said he hated white people.

Ministers are facing calls to revoke his British citizenship, which he was granted in 2021 while imprisoned in Egypt, where campaigners described him as a “prisoner of conscience”.

Sir Keir’s tweet yesterday said how “delighted” he was that Alaa Abd El-Fattah is back in this country. Does that seem a reasonable stance to take for someone who has claimed at the same time to be committed to "eradicating antisemitism in the UK"?

The government tried to remove my grandfather’s citizenship for far far less.

I’m hoping this person may at least have changed his views, but I doubt it.
Why aren’t some basic checks being done before awarding citizenship? Employers often check social media before awaiting employment contracts. Why can’t the authorities do the same before giving British citizenship?

Same here. My hero at the moment is Kemi Badenoch who has wiped the floor with Starmer on more than one occasion 😀

Badenoch was part of the Govt that campaigned for his release... as did many other leading Tories, both in Govt and opposition.

Jenrick right now being made to look an idiot on Sky, when Tory ministers quotes played back to him....

WTAF? Has Starmer gone stark raving mad?

I think it's worse than that. Nobody in the media bothered to look into this guy until Starmer got el-Fattah trending on Twitter and this lead to people reading el-Fattah's Twitter feed and highlighting his awful Tweets. It was only then that the Daily Telegraph and others noticed that there might be a story here.

I also suspect this is why there was no backlash when el-Fattah was granted citizenship by the Conservative government: it didn't trend on social media and so no journalist picked up on the story.

A depressing picture of the state of journalism today.

Yes she does seem strong & clever now.

Weirdly, she seemed less so when the Tories were in power so quite honestly I don't trust any of them to do a good job representing the people of Britain anymore. As soon as they're in power they seem to change.

I suppose it’s easier to mouth off when you’re not actually having to make the decisions. I suppose it’s much like that in real life too. 😆

This man was removed from being nominated from a major European peace prize before he was granted UK citizenship, due to his beliefs.

The media have European correspondents, they knew but because it was a Tory Govt, they said nothing.
Much like when Starmer took gifts as an opposition minister, nothing said.... until he became PM....

It wasn’t her leading though. In the end someone has to do it so you may as well vote for whomever you prefer.

Presumably he'll get the same treatment that Lucy Connolly got for her tweets?

No chance. A leopard doesn't change its spots and his arrogant bigotry will rear its head again.

She may be a hero to some working class but not to all. She's as deceitful over her property tax as the next person. I wouldn't trust her to be my MP let alone Leader of the Labour Party.

Well, I wouldn't describe what he wrote as mildly as "arrogant bigotry". His tweets, seem positively genocidal towards zionists, the British police and white people. I wonder why he wouldn't get the same treatment as Lucy Connolly got? All British citizens get equal treatment (and punishment) in Labour's UK surely, that's what they keep saying anyway?

She was prosecuted under a law introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1986....

You do realise its the Police/CPS that charge people and the courts that sentence them?

Govts of all colours have nothing to do with any of this and long may that be the case.

Regardless, he should have his citizenship revoked and sent back to Egypt.

They still could revoke his citizenship seeing as he has dual citizenship and wasn't born a UK national.

I don't know what would be more embarrassing for them at this stage - to keep him or deport him back to Egypt.

I can think of one big reason.

It looks more like they just didn't do any proper checking either. The Telegraph wrote a piece a few days ago which mentions nothing about his abhorent views (it also barely mentions the efforts of either the Tories or Labour to free him).

The Telegraph and subsequent MSM only started reporting on them early yesterday evening but people on Twitter/X had been responding to Starmer's tweets since very early that morning with screenshots.

So we've got journalists and politicians who don't do basic checks...great.

www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/338eec5b5e1abb47

I still suspect (not know) that the media keep stories like this until it suits, they did similar to Bojo.

I don't expect any PM or minister to spend time trawling the net looking for vile tweets but i do expect civil servants and the security services to this on their behalf.

@Alexandra2001 yes of course the media keep stories until it suits them to use it

But that's irrelevant in this situation

Keir Starmer opened up the whole thing by tweeting about it himself. It would've gone unnoticed if he hadn't done that.

Exactly.

I wonder if as far as the PM's thinking went the human rights advocate part of his brain kicked in and he saw it as an opportunity to trumpet the release of an activist (whatever that means) from the clutches of what some regard as an authoritarian regime, something the Tories didn't manage in their term of office....

Pity a Sir Humphrey or equivalent didn't step in and say "Prime Minister, do you really want to phrase your X that way...in fact do you need to post anything at all".

Keir Starmer opened up the whole thing by tweeting about it himself. It would've gone unnoticed if he hadn't done that

Well in a roundabout way, Starmer has done us all a favour as we know now how abhorrent Abd el-Fattah's views are.

@PandoraSocks agree. Who else like this has been given citizenship (under any government).

Maybe it's exposing something bigger that we really need to know about.

He's got to be deported surely and have British citizenship revoked. Again, I don't care whose fault it was whether Tories or Labour's but we have the facts now and his posts weren't something vaguely unpleasant he clearly supports terrorism and is a Jew hater.

We need to see this headlined and action taken.

Surely that’s to the people exposing the tweets. I doubt Starmer wants the scrutiny of drought / prioritisation.

'Pity Sir Humphrey' ... Exactly this. WTF are Starmer's aides doing? Not their job, that's for sure.