Sir Keir Starmer is facing mounting calls to strip the UK citizenship from a democracy activist recently released from years of detention in Egypt after his past “extremist” social posts sparked a backlash.
Alaa Abd El-Fattah was detained in Egypt in September 2019, and in December 2021 was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of spreading false news.
His imprisonment was branded a breach of international law by UN investigators, and he was pardoned by Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi in September after years of lobbying by Conservative and Labour governments.
He flew to the UK on Boxing Day and was reunited with his son, who lives in Brighton, after a travel ban was lifted.
Since then, posts have emerged dating back to 2010 in which the activist appears to call for violence towards Zionists and the police.
He has apologised "unequivocally" for the Tweets but said some of the posts have been "completely twisted out of their meaning".
Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage have called for the Home Secretary to look into whether the Egyptian dissident can be stripped of his UK citizenship and deported.
Senior Labour MPs have also said the Prime Minister should strip him of his British citizenship, according to the Times.
Tory leader Mrs Badenoch said it was “inconceivable” that no one saw Mr Abd El-Fattah’s published statements over the years and suggested those who did deemed them “offensive but unserious, or merely loose talk”.
Writing in the Daily Mail, she said: “I do not want people who hate Britain coming to our country.
“And where such views are part of an individual’s public record, they must be considered when decisions are taken about citizenship. We have been too complacent for too long.”
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick had earlier called the activist’s links to the UK “tenuous at best” and said he was granted citizenship because of a “loophole”, in comments to Sky News.
Mr Abd El-Fattah was granted UK citizenship in December 2021 under Boris Johnson, reportedly through his UK-born mother.
Reform UK leader Mr Farage has written to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood urging her to revoke Mr Abd El-Fattah’s citizenship.
Mr Farage notes that MPs and peers from parties including Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have championed his case.
“Indeed, it was the Conservatives who granted citizenship to Mr el-Fattah in 2021 while he was still imprisoned.
“That none of those parties carried out basic due diligence on this unpleasant individual is, frankly, astonishing.
“It should go without saying that anyone who possesses racist and anti-British views such as those of Mr el-Fattah should not be allowed into the UK,” he said.
In a statement on Sunday, the Foreign Office 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.
“The Government condemns Mr El-Fattah’s historic tweets and considers them to be abhorrent.”
It is understood Sir Keir was not aware of the social media posts when he said he was “delighted” that Mr Abd El-Fattah had returned to the UK.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said they had raised concerns with the Government and that there was an “urgent need” to find out whether Mr Abd El-Fattah still held the views expressed online.
“His previous extremist and violent rhetoric aimed at ‘Zionists’ and white people in general is threatening to British Jews and the wider public,” the board said.
Meanwhile, the Jewish Leadership Council voiced concerns about the safety of Jewish communities in the wake of recent antisemitic attacks in Manchester and at Australia’s Bondi Beach.
The council said: “We are appalled by the effusive welcome Alaa Abd El-Fattah has received from the UK Government.
“The Prime Minister recently reiterated his determination to root out antisemitism from our country but has now shared his delight that someone who has advocated for killing Zionists has arrived in the UK.”
Iain Duncan Smith was among those who expressed regret at having lobbied for Mr Abd El-Fattah’s release.
The former Conservative Party leader urged the police to investigate the comments.
Tory MP Alicia Kearns, a former chair of the foreign affairs select committee, said she felt “deeply let down, and frankly betrayed” after learning of Mr Abd El-Fattah’s “grotesque tweets” after supporting his cause.
She had called for him “must unequivocally apologise and make clear he now wholly rejects the hatred and antisemitism he expressed which is so wholly incompatible with British values”.
Mr Abd El-Fattah was a leading voice in Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising and went on hunger strikes behind bars.
In 2014, the blogger’s posts on Twitter cost him a nomination for the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize.
The group backing him withdrew the nomination for the human rights award, saying they had discovered a tweet from 2012 in which he called for the murder of Israelis.
