Tories repeat calls to strip activist of UK citizenship amid ‘insincere’ apology
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said that if he were in government, he would be ‘making sure’ Alaa Abd El-Fattah was deported.
Senior Conservatives have repeated calls to strip Alaa Abd El-Fattah of his British citizenship despite the activist’s apology for historic tweets in which he appeared to call for violence against Zionists and the police.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said that if he were in Government, he would be “deporting” Mr Abd El-Fattah, who was recently released from years of detention in Egypt.
His imprisonment for charges of spreading false news 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 dating from 2010 have surfaced in which the activist appears to call for violence against Zionists and the police.
Mr Abd El-Fattah said in a statement that he understood “how shocking and hurtful” his previous comments were but Mr Philp claimed his apology was “insincere”.
Party leader Kemi Badenoch also wrote in Monday’s Daily Mail that the posts were “disgusting and vile”.
In his statement, Mr Abd El-Fattah said: “I unequivocally apologise.
“They (the posts) were mostly expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises (the wars on Iraq, on Lebanon and Gaza), and the rise of police brutality against Egyptian youth.
“I particularly regret some that were written as part of online insult battles with the total disregard for how they read to other people. I should have known better.”
Mr 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.
He was granted UK citizenship in December 2021 under former Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson, reportedly through his UK-born mother.
He said: “I am shaken that, just as I am being reunited with my family for the first time in 12 years, several historic tweets of mine have been republished and used to question and attack my integrity and values, escalating to calls for the revocation of my citizenship.”
Some posts had been “completely twisted out of their meaning”, he also said.
Speaking on Times Radio, Mr Philp described Mr Abd El-Fattah’s statement as an “insincere apology”.
Asked whether stripping Mr Abd El-Fattah of his citizenship was an “appropriate tool for essentially controlling what people say”, the MP said that the Government was able to strip dual nationals of their citizenship “where that person is not conducive to the public good”.
Mr Philp said people who expressed what he described as “extremist views” and called for “violence” should be removed.
“The Home Secretary (Shabana Mahmood) should be deporting people who express those disgraceful, disgusting views – if they’re not British citizens or if they’re dual nationals, they should be stripping (nationality) and then deporting,” he said.
Mr Philp also faced calls to explain why a previous Conservative government had granted Mr Abd El-Fattah citizenship.
“I don’t know whether ministers at the time were sighted on the individual facts of this case,” he told the broadcaster.
“All I can do is speak for what I know today, and that is that if I were home secretary today, I’d be revoking his citizenship and deporting him.”
Mrs Badenoch said the activist “should have received a free and fair trial in Egypt”, warning that “the long years of detention, the suffering of his family and the lack of due process are not things any democracy should be comfortable with”.
“There ends my sympathy,” she said.
The Conservative leader added: “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 previously described Mr Abd El-Fattah’s UK connections “tenuous at best”, and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has written to Ms Mahmood urging her to revoke his citizenship.
“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,” Mr Farage 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 Starmer was not aware of the social media posts, when the Prime Minister said he was “delighted” Mr Abd El-Fattah had arrived in the UK.
The activist was a prominent 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.
Mr Abd El-Fattah said he had seen “huge empathy and solidarity” from across the UK and would be “forever grateful” for the support.
“It has been painful to see some people who supported calls for my release now feel regret for doing so,” he said.
“Whatever they feel now, they did the right thing. Standing up for human rights and a citizen unjustly imprisoned is something honourable, and I will always be grateful for that solidarity.”
