Downing Street faced a furious backlash last night after saying a controversial Egyptian dissident was ‘welcome’ in Britain.
No 10 defended Keir Starmer‘s handling of the case of Alaa Abd El-Fattah, amid calls for him to be stripped of his British citizenship over vile outbursts about Jews, the police and white people.
El-Fattah issued a partial apology for his online rants, which are being assessed by the Metropolitan Police. But he also ‘liked’ a post on Facebook claiming that he is the victim of a ‘campaign launched by the Zionists’.
Yvette Cooper last night ordered an urgent inquiry into ‘serious information failures’ that left ministers blindsided by El-Fattah’s extremist comments, despite them being a matter of public controversy for years.
The Foreign Secretary said checks on his background had been ‘completely inadequate’.
Sir Keir last night acknowledged that social media posts in which El-Fattah called for the murder of Jews and police officers – and voiced his hatred of white people – were ‘abhorrent’.
Downing Street insisted the PM was not aware of them when he voiced his ‘delight’ at El-Fattah’s arrival in the UK last week.
Alaa Abd el-Fattah stands next to his mother, Laila Soueif, and sister, Sanaa, at home in Giza, Egypt
Sir Keir last night acknowledged that social media posts in which El-Fattah called for the murder of Jews and police officers – and voiced his hatred of white people – were ‘abhorrent’
But he did not delete his tweet welcoming him to the UK. And asked if he remained ‘delighted’ now that he had seen details of El-Fattah’s comments, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: ‘We welcome the return of a British citizen unfairly detained abroad, as we would in all cases.’
The Conservatives branded El-Fattah a ‘scumbag’ who should be deported. Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said: ‘It beggars belief that Starmer still ‘welcomes’ this anti-British, anti-white, anti-Semitic extremist to our country. It’s clear he won’t revoke his citizenship, won’t deport him and doesn’t regret bringing him here.’
Fellow Tory MP Jack Rankin said: ‘Of course El-Fattah is not welcome here. He’s not British, he was automatically granted citizenship by the Whitehall machine because of the courts applying European human rights laws, and the Home Secretary should use her powers to remove him immediately.’
Reform UK pledged a change in the law to make it easier to deport dual nationals ‘who have expressed vile and anti-British views’.
Leader Nigel Farage said: ‘Both Tory and Labour governments have opened our doors to evil people.
‘Reform will change the law and make our country safe again. Will Starmer do the same?’
El-Fattah landed in the UK on Boxing Day after almost ten years in Egyptian jails.
Critics unearthed a string of vile tweets within minutes of Sir Keir tweeting his ‘delight’.
In a series of messages dating back to 2010, he called for ‘the killing of all Zionists, including civilians’. He described the British as ‘dogs and monkeys’, and spoke of his hatred for white people, boasting he was ‘proud of being racist against whites’.
El-Fattah (pictured) one of the 25 detained activists of January 25 Revolution in Egypt, is seen during the Shura Council trials at the Cairo Police Academy in Cairo, Egypt, on November 2014
El-Fattah, 44, issued a qualified apology early yesterday as the backlash grew, but suggested that some of his rants had been ‘twisted’ out of context.
In a post in August 2011, when London was in the grip of riots, El-Fattah wrote: ‘Go burn the city or Downing Street or hunt police, you fools.’ He said the police were ‘not human’, adding: ‘We should just kill them all.’
El-Fattah, 44, issued a qualified apology early yesterday as the backlash grew, but suggested that some of his rants had been ‘twisted’ out of context.
He said he was ‘shaken’ that things he said in the past were being used to ‘question and attack my integrity and values, escalating to calls for the revocation of my citizenship’.
‘Looking at the tweets now – the ones that were not completely twisted out of their meaning – I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologise.
They were mostly expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises.’
The Prime Minister’s spokesman described the apology as ‘fairly fulsome’, adding: ‘That’s clearly the right thing to do.’
But Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said the statement was an ‘insincere apology’.
He added: ‘What he said was absolutely disgusting. In my view, this man is a scumbag.
El-Fattah (pictured on right) landed in the UK on Boxing Day after almost ten years in Egyptian jails (file photo)
‘If I was the Home Secretary, I would today be signing an order to revoke his citizenship. People who spew this kind of hatred have no place in this country, and the fact he’s issued an apology now that he’s been essentially exposed makes no difference whatsoever.’
Ms Cooper last night ordered an investigation into how the Foreign Office failed to uncover El-Fattah’s background. It is all the more startling given that his tweets led to his nomination for an international human rights prize being rescinded in 2014.
The Foreign Secretary acknowledged that tweets from her and other senior ministers celebrating El-Fattah’s arrival in the UK had ‘added to the distress felt by Jewish communities in the UK and I very much regret that’.
Mr Farage has referred El-Fattah’s comments to counter-terrorism police. The Met Police said the posts were ‘being assessed to determine whether any further police investigation may be required’.
