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"?

Although Mr Fattah has apologised for historical comments he made, his official Facebook account has subsequently liked a post which said that “Zionists against Alaa Abd El Fattah” were behind a “campaign”.

Robert Jenrick said, “At the same time as El Fattah is apologising “unequivocally” over on Arabic Facebook he is liking posts claiming he’s just the victim of a Zionist campaign”.

The Facebook post Mr Fattah appeared to have liked was re-posting another that claimed “Zionist” journalists and Jewish groups had been “among the most vocal” critics of him.

So it’s the fault of the Jews again apparently.

Good point about holocaust denial. Every time that happens it must be a stab in the heart of remaining Jews.

The Tories didn't start the process... they started and finished it, with people like Jenrick and Badenoch in the Government at the time, i find it inconceivable they didn't know about his tweets (or the current govt too)
Sunak went to Cop27 and raised his case with the Egyptians there...

IF and its a big IF they didn't, then what are they and their advisors doing to earn their salaries??

Yes its totally wrong what Starmer has done, he has then made it even worse with his follow up statements.

Awful time to be Jewish in this country.

People like man shouldn't be allowed into the country, let alone given citizenship

It wasn’t finished pre Starmer.

He was still stuck in Egypt. Starmer got the ban on him leaving lifted.

Who is denying that? I ve consistently criticised Starmer over this..

However, he was given citizenship by Sunak & Patel, without which, Starmers actions wouldn't have been "effective"
The Egyptians allowed him to leave because he had UK citizenship and after having been in jail for sometime, they wanted rid....

I appreciate you want to put this all on Starmer for your own agenda but the reality is, ALL of them have mud on their hands.

At the risk of heading down an AM rabbit hole...

if you want to be utterly bloody cynical about this you need to put yourself in a politician's shoes and think along the following lines:

It''s not about what's right or wrong, it's not about what's best for the safety of the general public in the UK, it's a question of if there were votes to be had advocating for Mr Fattah becoming a British citizen (Tories) and then arguing he should be able to leave Egypt and head for the UK (Labour).

It’s so bizarre. Hardly anyone had heard of him I’m sure. Even with that list of celebs. All the names you’d expect for that btw.

But for votes this outcome is so off putting for most.

Yep. If we're talking blame, the policy change allowing this to happen and the grant of citizenship itself both happened under Tory administrations. The attempt to get him returned is a shared shitshow, as both Tory and Labour governments participated.

Going forward, we should consider changing the policy whereby there's no good character test for this kind of citizenship.

If anyone believes that nobody in authority knew, they must be blind, deaf and dumb. My view is that MI5 knew and briefed the Home Office and nothing was done.

Of course it's the fault of the Jews, again 😡

It's a stab in the heart for all Jews.

If you start digging back a year or two using Google you can see that the family seem to have been very astute at gaining favourable coverage in some elements of the media, but not the sort of outlets many of us would see or read..hopefully this link isn't blocked by a paywall:

www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/a-mothers-hunger-strike-challenges-two-nations

I haven't had a chance to look into this yet, but I've heard that the policy change that allowed him to come here was brought about by a murderer! Someone applying for citizenship and trying to get round the good character test? And after that, things changed? I don't know if this is true or not so at some point I'm going to look it up.

Yes an ECHR ruling

@EasternStandard yes that's what I heard it was the ECHR ruling

I wanted to actually look at the case. You know what I'm like 😊

This is my fundamental question. Who are all these politicians trying to impress, and why do they think it is worth chucking Jews, and indeed all Britons (because for all his horrifying antisemitism and homophobia, he clearly hates the rest of us and wants harm on us too) under the bus over it? The Tories started it, and Labour is finishing it, with lots of performative fanfare designed to show what they are doing, and now they're refusing to even try to get the bastard back out. They're not apologising, they're not admitting fault and they're not working to remove him.

I haven't seen this level of utter contempt for the electorate since the Covid parties. They obviously don't give a shit about their people or most vulnerable minority communities, so... who the fuck are they trying to please?

Good question @ThatCyanCat

When the public presses on this, I expect we will be told thst the ECHR forced their hand.

I think the next Conservative or Reform government will take us out of the ECHR. Whether that will matter with current make up of our judiciary is anyone’s guess.

It suddenly occurs to me, in response to people who think his racist, murderous screed is OK because it was a while ago... well, he hasn't been able to post more recently because he's been in prison.

@ThatCyanCat as I've stated before, the government wants to appeal to the constituents of those MPs who won their seats campaigning about a war thousands of miles away, as well as voters who are moving towards Green or Reform. Two sides of the same coin.

It's all about keeping the votes to remain in power. The power game is played by all political parties. In addition, MPs have to toe the party line at the expense of their constituents. I've seen this with my own MP.

this article provides a decent and balanced background to the case:

https://conservativehome.com/2025/12/28/a-no-uk-citizen-left-behind-policy-is-all-very-well-but-the-case-of-one-egyptian-poses-awkward-questions-for-two-uk-governments/

TLDR -

in the run up to COP27 (hosted in Sharm El Sheikh, in November 2022) a number of European Countries wanted to bring the campaign to a head telling the Egyptians that as hosts of a global meeting, it was awkward for their credibility on the international stage to also be routinely locking up for years those who said things their Government didn’t like.

Alaa Abd el-Fattah was a leading critic of the human rights abuses he insists were rife within the Egyptian government. Many countries saw him as a freedom and democracy campaigner and partly due to the pressure his mother and family exerted, the UK government was part of that campaign. was one of the most prominent and celebrated. His mother was born in the UK while her mother studied here, but he had lived, worked, campaigned – and been jailed – in Egypt.

Ultimately, it seem that Egypt didn't really give a toss what the rest of the world thought.

But this is a gift to Reform!

It is indeed.

@ThatCyanCat

I haven't seen this level of utter contempt for the electorate since the Covid parties. They obviously don't give a shit about their people or most vulnerable minority communities,

Have to say I'm hearing and reading an increasing amount of unhappiness expressed along those lines.

If there's another Southport type attack or anything remotely similar I fear there is real potential for civil unrest, "Westminster" needs to wake up PDQ.

The Tories didn't start the process... they started and finished it

They clearly didn't finish it - Sunak's government was criticised in late 2023 for lack of progress in this case.

what [were] they and their advisors doing to earn their salaries??

Prioritising trade and gas deals with Egypt according to a statement made by Abd El-Fattah's family in 2023.

Robert Jenrick was not a government minister when Abd El-Fattah was granted British citizenship and he's not in government now that Abd El-Fattah has been welcomed to the UK. Unless you can come up with something else, your repeated attempts to pin this on Robert Jenrick look a bit pathetic. Personally I blame Wes Streeting .

Agree it is bad for votes as well as being bad in lots of other ways too.

I can't see any logic to it at all. And I do blame Tories and Labour more or less equally so not making a political point.

I wouldn't want Reform to get in at the next election but this is a gift for them which they will definitely capitalise on.