Starmer welcomes ‘extremist’ to Britain

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”.

The row risks undermining Sir Keir’s attempts to prove the Labour Government can be tough on migration and threatens to overshadow an announcement of the UK’s first visa restrictions on a foreign country – the Democratic Republic of Congo – over its refusal to take back illegal migrants.

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has written a letter demanding that Sir Keir explains what he knew about Mr Abd el-Fattah’s remarks, whether he condemned them and whether he would say that the Government does not “excuse or legitimise calls for violence against police, Jews or Israelis”.

Mr Jenrick told The Telegraph: “Shame on the Prime Minister for making it his ‘top priority’ to bring an extremist to our country who has incited violence against Jews. This awful extremist should never have set foot in the UK again.

“Starmer and his Cabinet taking to social media to laud this man is truly sickening. They seem to be more interested in cosying up to Islamists, presumably in the vain hope of securing votes, than keeping the British people safe.”

Sir Keir said after Mr Abd el-Fattah’s arrival in the UK on Friday that his casehad been a “top priority” for the Government.

The Prime Minister wrote on X: “I’m delighted that Alaa Abd El-Fattah is back in the UK and has been reunited with his loved ones, who must be feeling profound relief.”

But it emerged that, in a series of now deleted posts on X dating back more than a decade, Mr Abd el-Fattah repeatedly expressed his desire to “kill” Zionists and has also urged his supporters to kill “all police”.

In posts circulating on social media on Saturday, he said he considered it “heroic” to kill “any colonialists and specially Zionists”, adding: “We need to kill more of them.”

In 2010, he wrote on X: “Dear Zionists, please don’t ever talk to me, I’m a violent person who advocated the killing of all Zionists including civilians, so f--- off”.

He also denied that the Holocaust took place, writing in 2010 that “there was no genocide against Jews by the Nazis – after all, many Jews are left”.

In 2010 he wrote: “So the brilliant British dogs and monkeys really think terrorists will reveal their plans on Twitter.”

In a series of tweets from his account, posted between 2008 and 2010, he heaped praise on Osama Bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda and mastermind of the Sept 11 terror attacks on the US.

He expressed his intention to “join Bin Laden” on five separate occasions, saying in one post: “Now all I can think of is joining Bin Laden and killing a few Americans.”

The following year, he declared that “police are not human”, adding: “They don’t have rights, we should just kill them all.”

In a separate post he wrote: “I’m telling you that I hate white people.”

On Aug 8 2011, at the height of riots in London and across the UK, Mr Abd el-Fattah said: “Now my real criticism of these post-police murder riots is the wrong focus, go burn the City or Downing Street, or hunt police fools.”

Mr Abd el-Fattah’s social media remarks have long been a cause of controversy. His 2014 nomination for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought was withdrawn after the discovery of a tweet from 2012 in which he appeared to call for the deaths “of a critical number of Israelis”.

The European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL), which originally nominated him for the award, said at the time: “We cannot and will not tolerate such behaviour.”

In response to the nomination being withdrawn, Mr Abd el-Fattah wrote a rebuttal in Madr Masr, an independent online Egyptian newspaper, in which he claimed his tweets had been “taken out of context”.

He wrote: “The president of the GUE/NGL has now sent a clear message to the Egyptian authorities that whatever international solidarity and support I have is fragile – easily destroyed with a tweet.”

Mr Abd el-Fattah said that, if taken out of context, the tweet cited could seem “shocking”, but added that it was part of a “private conversation” that took place during Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defence assault on Gaza in 2012.

Jailed for protesting against Egyptian government

Defending his social media posts, he added: “The tweet stated what seems to be the basic strategy of most national liberation movements, especially those that opt for armed resistance: to make the price of occupation/colonisation/apartheid too expensive for the society that supports it.

“Since this was during a time of war, I had armed resistance in mind. Think of Vietnam or Algeria; many would say this is exactly what happened: after a critical number of casualties in asymmetric wars, the civilian population supporting the occupier refused to continue its support – despite the fact that the casualties suffered by the society resisting colonisation were massively higher.”

He also said he was “completely reconciled to a Middle East with Israel” but opposed the “apartheid” system in the country.

Mr Abd el-Fattah was subsequently jailed, and has spent more than a decade in prison in Egypt on various charges. From 2015 to 2019, he served a jail sentence for protesting against the Egyptian government.

He was re-arrested in September 2019 and jailed for a further five years for “spreading false news” after sharing a Facebook post about torture in the country.

After his release from prison this September, he was refused permission to leave Egypt. On Friday, his travel ban was lifted and he flew to the UK to be reunited with his teenage son, who lives in Brighton.

‘Open our doors to the wrong people’

Labour has been campaigning for his freedom since it was in opposition, and the previous Conservative government also pressed Cairo on the issue.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said: “Tory and Labour both open our doors to the wrong people. They are as bad as each other.”

Mr Abd el-Fattah’s campaign for freedom was supported by Philippe Sands KC, who has been close to Sir Keir for more than 20 years. Mr Sands has acted as counsel for the Mauritian government since 2010 and was at the heart of the controversial Chagos Islands deal earlier this year.

Dozens of celebrities – including the actors Dame Judi Dench, Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Olivia Colman and Bill Nighy – backed the “Free Alaa” campaign.

Yvette Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, and David Lammy, the Justice Secretary, echoed the Prime Minister’s comments upon Mr Abd el-Fattah’s arrival, saying they were “delighted”.

Mr Lammy said it was an “immense relief” that Mr Abd el-Fattah was back in the UK and reunited with his family.

However, Jewish campaigners said it “beggars belief” that Cabinet ministers were “celebrating” Mr Abd el-Fattah’s return.

Alex Hearn, the co-director of the campaign group Labour Against Anti-Semitism, said: “It is reckless at best to openly state that getting him into Britain was their ‘top priority’ which they were ‘delighted’ to achieve, especially following deadly attacks on Jews.

“There is absolutely a case for revoking his citizenship. He should have been arrested on arrival in the UK, not welcomed.”

Gideon Falter, the chief executive of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, said: “Either the Government did not carry out a basic search, or they knew about this and considered it insufficiently important to warrant saying anything.

“In the wake of lethal terrorist attacks on Jews from Manchester to Bondi, the UK now has yet one more resident who wants to see ‘Zionists’ murdered, unless of course the passage of time and a long spell in Egypt have led to a radical rethink by Alaa Abd el-Fattah.”

Mr Falter urged ministers to review how Mr Abd el-Fattah was granted citizenship and consider “whether it might now be revoked”.

Gary Mond, the chairman of the National Jewish Assembly, said “the fact that the establishment is kowtowing to such a person is a horrendous indictment on our Government and what its priorities are”. Stop the Hate, an anti-racism charity, condemned ministers for appearing to have “implicitly legitimised” Mr Abd el-Fattah’s views.

Andrew Fox, a senior fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, said the welcoming of Mr Abd el-Fattah by Cabinet ministers was “utterly misplaced”, adding: “At the very least, ministers should condemn his statements and Mr El-Fattah must offer an apology and a public retraction, or he deserves no place in UK society.”

Mr Abd el-Fattah has been approached for comment.

A Government spokesman said: “Mr El-Fattah is a British citizen. It has been a long-standing priority under successive governments to work for his release from detention, and to see him reunited with his family in the UK.”

A Labour source pointed out that the previous Conservative government had lobbied for Mr Abd el-Fattah’s release, and had granted him British citizenship in 2021.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]