The Tories today dismissed an ‘insincere’ apology from a ‘scumbag’ Egyptian dissident over vile tweets as they stepped up demands for his deportation.
Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s arrival in the UK on Boxing Day was welcomed by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer following years of detention in his native Egypt.
But, since then, social media posts from as early as 2010 have surfaced in which the dual British national appeared to call for violence against Zionists and the police.
Mr Abd El-Fattah has now apologised ‘unequivocally’ for several historic tweets and said some of the posts had been ‘completely twisted out of their meaning’.
But senior Conservative MP Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said he was ‘not really interested’ in a statement issued by the activist.
‘I haven’t seen the full statement but I’ve seen parts of it, and frankly, I’m not really interested in his apology,’ Mr Philp told ITV‘s Good Morning Britain on Monday.
‘What he said was absolutely disgusting. In my view, this man is a scumbag.’
Mr Philip piled pressure on the Government to revoke Mr Abd El-Fattah’s UK citizenship and deport him from Britain.
The Tories have dismissed a grovelling apology from ‘scumbag’ Egyptian dissident Alaa Abd El-Fattah over vile social media posts as they stepped up demands for his deportation
Mr Abd El-Fattah’s arrival in the UK on Boxing Day was welcomed by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer following years of detention in his native Egypt
It is understood Sir Keir was not aware of Mr Abd El-Fattah’s social media posts when he said he was ‘delighted’ that Mr Abd El-Fattah had returned to the UK
‘If I was the actual Home Secretary, I would today be signing an order to revoke his citizenship under the 1971 Immigration Act,’ Mr Philp added.
‘On the grounds he’s not conducive to the public good and making sure he gets deported, because people who spew this kind of hatred have no place in this country.
‘The fact he’s issued an apology now that he’s been essentially exposed I think makes no difference whatsoever.
‘He’s clearly making the apology simply because his vile, hateful remarks have been publicly exposed now.’
Asked whether he thought ‘people can change’ their ways, Mr Philp replied Mr Abd El-Fattah ‘could have said all this at any point in the last 10 years – but he hasn’t’.
In a round of TV and radio interviews on Monday morning, Mr Philp also described Mr Abd El-Fattah’s statement as an ‘insincere apology’.
‘The Home Secretary 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 added to Times Radio.
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.’
Downing Street defended Mr Abd El-Fattah’s entry into the UK, saying the Government would welcome the return of any citizen ‘unfairly detained abroad’.
The PM’s official spokesman said: ‘We welcome the return of a British citizen unfairly detained abroad, as we would in all cases and as we have done in the past.’
‘That is central to Britain’s commitment to religious and political freedom.
‘That said, it doesn’t change the fact that we have condemned the nature of these historic tweets, and we consider them to be abhorrent, and we’ve been very clear about that.’
Asked if the Government was considering deporting Mr Abd El-Fattah, the PM’s spokesman added: ‘Clearly, we don’t get into individual citizenship cases.’
Sir Keir was ‘not aware of the historical tweets’ until after Mr Abd El-Fattah entered the UK, No10 said.
It is understood the Government had no immigration levers to pull which would have blocked his arrival.
The PM’s spokesman said Mr Abd El-Fattah’s apology was ‘unequivocal’ and ‘fairly fulsome’ and was ‘the right thing to do’.
Senior Labour MPs said Sir Keir had lost the trust of British Jews and joined those calling on the PM to strip Mr Abd El-Fattah of his British citizenship.
‘It’s truly shocking that we’ve welcomed a racist anti-Semite into our country with open arms,’ one minister told The Times.
‘Serious questions need to be asked about the lack of judgment here and the Home Office should seriously be contemplating stripping him of his British citizenship.’
Another Labour MP said: ‘Letting in a [man] with a history of rampant anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism crossing the line into terror supporting and calling for the death of all Zionists is ridiculous and bad enough.
‘But after Bondi Beach and the Manchester synagogue attack when the PM said he’d do everything to make the Jewish community feel safe, this looks and sounds like a kick in the face.’
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.
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 from as early as 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 issued on Monday: ‘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.
‘Looking at the tweets now – the ones that were not completely twisted out of their meaning – I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologise.
‘They 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.’
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Senior Conservative MP Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said he was ‘not really interested’ in an apology issued by Mr Abd El-Fattah
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK’s Nigel Farage have called for Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to look into whether the Egyptian dissident can be stripped of his UK citizenship and deported.
Mr Abd El-Fattah said he took allegations of anti-Semitism ‘very seriously’ and that some of the tweets had been ‘misunderstood, seemingly in bad faith’.
‘For example, a tweet being shared to allege homophobia on my part was actually ridiculing homophobia,’ he said.
‘I have paid a steep price for my public support for LGBTQ rights in Egypt and the world.
‘Another tweet has been wrongly interpreted to suggest Holocaust denial – but in fact the exchange shows that I was clearly mocking Holocaust denial.’
Mr Abd El-Fattah added: ‘I take accusations of anti-Semitism very seriously. I have always believed that sectarianism and racism are the most sinister and dangerous of forces, and I did my part and paid the price for standing up for the rights of religious minorities in Egypt.’
Mrs Badenoch previously 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.’
Mr Abd El-Fattah was granted UK citizenship in December 2021 under Boris Johnson, reportedly through his UK-born mother.
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.
Meanwhile, the Jewish Leadership Council voiced concerns about the safety of Jewish communities in the wake of recent anti-Semitic attacks in Manchester and at Australia’s Bondi Beach.
‘We know from Heaton Park, Manchester, and Bondi Beach that there are those who hear such words as a call to action,’ the organisation said in a post on X.
‘The Government has celebrated Mr Abd El-Fattah’s arrival as a victory, British Jews will see it as yet another reminder of the danger we face.’
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.
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.’
