FOREIGN Secretary Yvette Cooper has launched a review into ‘serious information failures’ in the case of British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah. She claimsthat she, Sir Keir Starmer and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy ‘were all unaware’ of Abd El Fattah’s historical tweets, which they consider to be ‘abhorrent’.
Seriously, are we supposed to believe that Britain’s government did not know of his views, or that the Egyptian government didn’t remind the British government of his views, before Britain granted Alaa citizenship in 2021, or before the entire Starmer cabinet celebrated his arrival in Britain in December 2025?
Alaa’s views were in the public domain. Take this gem from 2010: ‘I consider killing any colonialists and especially Zionists heroic, we need to kill more of them.’
It doesn’t stop there. Alaa reportedly urged ‘white genocide’, branded Britons ‘dogs and monkeys,’ and flirted with Holocaust denial.
Surprise, surprise: he now claims he was ‘misunderstood’ or taken out of context.
Starmer himself knew. In 2022, as leader of the opposition, he repeatedly called on the government to address the injustice of Alaa’s imprisonment for ‘social media posts.’
Oh the hypocrisy! Starmer leads a government that imprisons Britons for social media posts it doesn’t like.
If you’re looking for the perfect emblem of how out of touch Westminster has become, look no further than Alaa Abd El-Fattah.
After a decade behind bars in Egypt, he touched down in the UK on Boxing Day, and the political elite celebrated.
Starmer led the charge, hailing the arrival ‘back in the UK’ of a man who has never lived in Britain.
The Prime Minister expressed his ‘delight’ at the family reunion and called the release a triumph of compassion. Cabinet ministers piled on in a feel-good narrative of justice served.
It’s not just ministers. In December, more than 100 Parliamentarians signed a letter to Starmer’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy to demand Britain’s intervention into his continued detention.
And it’s not just Parliamentarians. In June 2022, celebrities joined a campaign to ‘Free Alaa’ with an open letter to then Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. The signatories included celebrities such as Judi Dench, Stephen Fry and Carey Mulligan, alongside political thinkers and others. In December 2024, actors such as Brian Cox filmed themselves at home calling for ‘Free Alaa’.
And it’s not just leftists. A Conservative government granted citizenship to Abd El-Fattah in December 2021, apparently without considering whether his views precluded his tenuous claim to Britishness.
He did not acquire citizenship by birth (he was born in Egypt in 1981), nor through naturalisation or residence. Instead, he obtained it by descent through his mother, Laila Soueif, a mathematics professor who was born in London in 1956 (while her own mother was studying there). Under British law, UK-born mothers could transmit citizenship to children, even if born outside the UK, even if now adults.
By the way, Alaa did not apply for citizenship out of sudden love for Britain. His family explicitly hoped that Britain would be as vocal about Alaa’s detention abroad as any other Briton, and that Egypt would follow its habit of treating dual nationals differently.
Abd El-Fattah’s citizenship was fast-tracked under Boris Johnson as premier and Priti Patel as Home Secretary. This decision doesn’t support Patel’s claim to be tough on immigration, although, to be fair, she said later she was frustrated by public servants. Current Tory leader Kemi Badenoch says that the decision was rubber-stamped by officials without Patel’s knowledge.
Remember: Starmer promised that his government would do everything necessary to make Jews safe after anti-Semitic terrorism in Manchester in October. Yet in November, Birmingham shamefully excluded Israeli football fans. In December, more Jews were killed in Bondi Beach, under a similarly two-tier Labor government in Australia. And in December, Starmer embraced an open supporter of anti-Semitism and terrorism. Jewish organisations rightly slam his hypocrisy.
Where is Starmer? He’s not said anything since the reporting of Abd El-Fattah’s views. The UK government (via the Foreign Office and Downing Street spokespeople) states: ‘The government condemns Mr El-Fattah’s historic tweets and considers them to be abhorrent.’
And while the Conservative Party, Reform UK and Advance UK have called for deportation of Abd El-Fattah, the government ignores the call.
This isn’t just a PR blunder – it’s a glaring snapshot of misplaced priorities and complete dismissal of public sentiment.
In today’s Britain, the real question isn’t ‘What was the elite thinking?’ It’s ‘When will we be rid of it?’
