Kemi Badenoch has called for the deportation of an Egyptian dissident, declaring: ‘I do not want people who hate Britain coming to our country.’
Writing in the Daily Mail, the Tory leader says Alaa Abd El-Fattah – whose arrival in the UK was celebrated by Keir Starmer – should be stripped of his dual British nationality and booted out.
It follows the emergence of vile social media posts in which El-Fattah advocated the murder of Jews and boasted of his hatred for white people, saying: ‘I seriously, seriously, seriously hate white people, especially those of English or Dutch or German descent.’
It comes just 48 hours after the Prime Minister welcomed El-Fattah’s arrival in the UK following years of detention in his native Egypt.
In a gushing welcome, Sir Keir said he was ‘delighted’ that the dissident had landed in Britain, adding that his release had been ‘a top priority for my Government since we came to office’.
Government sources suggested the PM was not aware of El-Fattah’s social media posts during the years in which he pressed for his release.
Mrs Badenoch called on Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to pull out all the stops to have El-Fattah deported.
‘The comments he made on social media about violence against Jews, white people and the police among others are disgusting and abhorrent – they were also anti-British,’ she said. ‘British citizenship is more than a passport. Our country is our home, not a hotel.’
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is also understood to be writing to Ms Mahmood, urging her to deport El-Fattah.
Senior Labour MPs said Sir Keir had lost the trust of British Jews and joined Mrs Badenoch in calling on him to strip 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.’
El-Fattah’s case has been promoted for years by liberal celebrities, with actors Olivia Colman, Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson among those pressing ministers to secure his release.
He was granted British citizenship in 2021 on the basis that his mother Laila Soueif was born in the UK while her mother was studying here as a student.
Mrs Badenoch today acknowledges it was a mistake to give him citizenship, but says the decision was ‘rubber-stamped’ by officials without escalating the case to the then home secretary Priti Patel.
She said it was ‘inconceivable’ that no-one in Government was aware of El-Fattah’s previous statements, adding: ‘Another serious problem is that there will be junior officials and decision-makers within parts of the Civil Service who hold these views, or see nothing wrong with them.’
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said civil servants involved in the case should be sacked if they knew of his record and kept it from ministers.
Labour MP Tom Rutland questioned whether proper due diligence had been done on the extremist.
‘It is unclear to me why it has been a priority for successive governments to bring this guy over here,’ he said. ‘What kind of vetting is routinely done in these cases? His tweets are impressive in how they manage to be vile in such a variety of ways.’
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said: ‘The social media history that has emerged from Alaa Abd El-Fattah is of profound concern… The cross-party campaign for such a person, and the warm welcome issued by the Government, demonstrate a broken system with an astonishing lack of due diligence by the authorities.’
El-Fattah was released from prison in September and was allowed to fly to the UK on Boxing Day.
In a post on social media that day, the Prime Minister said: ‘I’m delighted that Alaa Abd El-Fattah is back in the UK and has been reunited with his loved ones, who must be feeling profound relief.’
Critics immediately responded, citing examples of El-Fattah’s extremist social media posts dating back to 2010. These include a denial of the Holocaust and calls for ‘the killing of all Zionists, including civilians’.
In another outburst, he described the British as ‘dogs and monkeys’, while in August 2011, when London was in the grip of riots, El-Fattah wrote: ‘Go burn the city or Downing Street or hunt police, you fools.’ He said the police were ‘not human’, adding: ‘We should just kill them all.’
Despite the emerging evidence, senior government figures including Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Justice Secretary David Lammy initially continued to welcome El-Fattah’s release on Friday night.
In a terse statement, the Foreign Office defended government efforts to secure his release, but acknowledged his previous views were ‘abhorrent’.
El-Fattah is a long-time Egyptian dissident whose case has been a personal crusade for Sir Keir. In 2022, he raised the case in the Commons, ironically noting at the time that the dissident had been ‘jailed for the crime of posting on social media’.
The case has also been pursued by the PM’s controversial National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, who raised it with Egypt’s foreign minister.
Reform UK policy chief Zia Yusuf said both Labour and the Conservatives had questions to answer. He said: ‘In Britain if you threaten to kill a protected minority, you’re jailed.
‘If you threaten to kill white people, British people, Americans, gays and Jews – like El-Fattah, you get granted citizenship by the Tories and celebrated by the Labour Prime Minister.’
El-Fattah has made no public comment since arriving in the UK.
