Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown after expressing his 'delight' at the return to Britain of an Egyptian activist whose historic social media posts have been condemned as 'abhorrent'.
PM's 'Delighted' Welcome Sparks Immediate Backlash
The controversy erupted after Sir Keir publicly welcomed Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a British-Egyptian pro-democracy campaigner who had spent over a decade in Egyptian prisons. The Prime Minister's initial statement, which thanked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi for granting a pardon, was met with swift criticism when historic tweets from El-Fattah's account resurfaced online.
According to reports, Sir Keir and his senior ministers, including Deputy PM David Lammy and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, were unaware of the content of these posts when they celebrated the activist's reunification with his family in the UK. The posts, written predominantly between 2010 and 2011, contained extreme rhetoric advocating violence.
The 'Abhorrent' Social Media Posts in Question
The Foreign Office was compelled to issue a follow-up statement, explicitly condemning the historic tweets. The incendiary posts included calls to 'kill Zionists', with one stating, 'I consider killing any colonialists and especially Zionists heroic, we need to kill more of them.'
Other posts targeted British police, suggesting they 'are not human' and that 'we should just kill them all.' During the 2011 London riots, El-Fattah allegedly urged people to 'go burn the city or Downing Street or hunt police.' Further posts appeared to deny the Holocaust, claiming 'there was no genocide against Jews by the Nazis.'
Political Fallout and Calls for Accountability
The revelation prompted fierce condemnation from the Conservative opposition. Robert Jenrick, the Tory justice spokesman, penned a scathing critique, accusing the Prime Minister of sending a 'grotesque' signal at a time of surging anti-Semitic incidents. In a letter to Sir Keir, Jenrick demanded to know if the government was aware of the posts beforehand and called for an unqualified condemnation.
The Conservatives have even called for El-Fattah to be stripped of his UK citizenship, which was granted in 2022 through his British-born mother. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage also joined the criticism, lambasting the government's handling of the situation.
Campaign Against Antisemitism expressed profound concern, questioning whether the government failed to conduct basic checks or knowingly overlooked the inflammatory statements. A spokesman stated they 'struggle to decide which is more concerning.'
Alaa Abd El-Fattah, 44, became an internationally recognised figure during the Arab Spring. He was most recently imprisoned in December 2021 on charges of spreading false news and was finally pardoned and released in September 2024, arriving in the UK on Boxing Day. He has not publicly commented on the resurfaced tweets.
