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"?

‘Some posters’ again. Why does criticism of Starmer bother you?

I've seen reports that Egypt are looking to revoke his citizenship ASAP now that he is out of the country.
We are going to be stuck with him now, roll on the half-arsed attempts at Prevent referrals/prosecution leading to further hunger strikes and cringe actors reciting his shit poetry.
Well done everyone involved 👏

Why does criticism of Starmer bother you?

It doesn't. I have been critical of Starmer on this thread and others and in the post you have quoted. To be clear, I don't think he is a good politician or Prime Minister.

Ok so let people post criticism without the PA ‘some poster’ stuff.

He’s the PM. His tweets are jarring against the reality of this guy, of course people will have a view on that.

This.

Of course everyone blames Starmer, the buck stops with him. We were told this plenty of times when other PMs were in post.

He needs to try and show some leadership and get rid of this odious terrorist cheerleader.

ES, with respect, you don't get to tell me what I can and can't post. Other posters on this thread have made the same observation as I have, yet you haven't jumped on them.

Now this is becoming a derail, so I will leave it there.

It was your derail. Idk why you think people won’t criticism him and it’s a ‘stick to beat him with’ or whatever unless you don’t want to see any negativity.

I’d prefer you didn’t ‘some poster’ everything as it adds nothing bar a PA dig but there you go.

Well its a bit weird isnt it, given the video evidence that showed he was blatantly inciting violence.
Very strange 🤔

If this happens we’ve lost it. Incredible.

So what? He wasn't a cabinet minister at the time.

Feel more of a fool than our clown PM who tweeted so effusively to welcome into the country a man who hates us all? Doubtful.

@EasternStandard if I were Sisi it's exactly what I'd do, why not? Get rid of extremist rabble-rouser and show up the posturing UK government as the flat-footed idiots they clearly are. Win-win.
Let's face it, if Tommy Robinson suddenly acquired dual citizenship we'd be daft not to cancel his UK passport the minute he went overseas

Shamima Begum is effectively stateless. It can happen.

Leading politician engineers maximum publicity for welcoming an extremist who has called for violence and death on people like the politicians own wife and son.
note: Starmer has said that his wife is Jewish. According to Jewish Rules Children are of the same religion as their Mother.
It could only happen to Labour.

Why are we so weak and pathetic in the UK (government I mean)?

On the contrary, it could happen to any political party. It’s also happened to the Tories who gave him citizenship but that’s conveniently ignored.

It hasn't been ignored on this thread!

Exactly it has been parroted a few times hardly 'conveniently ignored'.

However Labour are now trying to run the country so it's up to Starmer to fix this.

It's quite possible that a number of Abd El Fattahs tweets were meant to be sarcastic or flippant. I would not conclude that he intended people to take them all literally.

However, we are in a place as a society where free speech has been encroached on to such an extent that the intentions of the person stating an opinion matter less than the feelings of those who hear or read it. This is where the Public Order Act in particular has ended up.

There is a clear demonstration of that in the idea that some police forces now believe that the chanting the phrase “globalise the Intifada” is an arrestable offence, when it was previously tolerated, simply because the context has changed. The speech is the same, but the feelings it provokes are different. That is dangerous territory in my opinion because the boundaries of legality become perilously unclear.

There are clearly things that Abd El-Fattah has said on X that are every bit as bad as things that have resulted in imprisonment for others. That in itself is damning in respect of our treatment of free speech, but it becomes many times more problematic when our PM, who has roundly condemned hate speech is expressing delight at welcoming someone who indulges in it into the UK.

I think the underlying issue that this case raises is about the infantilising of minority groups by certain parts of the media and political establishment. Complex individuals like Abd El-Fattah are reducing to one dimensional caricatures - either good or bad. Messy details anround their beliefs are glossed over in favour of their totemic symobolism. They become a cause to be championed rather than a person to be understood.

The same thing happened in reverse with people like Lucy Connolly and Ricky Jones, who were imprisoned because of very similar statements that they made during the recent riots.

In the real world the good guys are not always entirely good and the bad guys are not always entirely bad. It’s never that simple and the fiasco over Abd El-Fattah is a cautionary tale for politicians and celebrities who try to make themselves look worthy by jumping on the latest bandwagon.

I'm not sure that he should be deported, but I do hope that this affair is a turning point in the battle for freedom of expression in the UK. We arrest more people for statements on social media than most totalitarian regimes. That should not be tolerated.

Just another Tory mess to clean up.

@Blossomtoes
But this man was not in UK so need not have been admitted. He could have sat in Egypt with his dual Nationality and enjoyed the warmth. It was not an administrative process like recognising nationality. There was a deliberate move by Labour and Keir personally to regard this hateful man as an ally, gaslight us about his guilt and bring him in.
BTW how did he travel? Did we pay his fare?

The man would still be in Egypt without Starmer’s actions and making it a top priority.

Then tweeting about being delighted. He did it to himself.

He’s a British citizen (courtesy of the last government), how do you suggest he could legally be refused entry? As to his travel arrangements, hasn’t the Telegraph covered that? How remiss of it.

Starmer asked the Egyptian president to remove the ban on him leaving.

So yep he could have stayed there without that.

@AlecTrevelyan006 you cannot be serious? 'a number of his tweets were meant to be flippant or sarcastic' WTAF are you thinking?
Freedom of expression in this country for the past two years has led to hatred and wishes of death to certain people with impunity. I'm guessing you aren't Jewish.

So he is a British and Egyptian citizen. He could stay in Egypt or go many places.
Why did Starmer give a speech of welcome, pleased that he is here?