Alaa Abd El-Fattah

Let's start with some overdue honesty. There are people from every part of the political spectrum, including not just the present Labour government but also some members of all the opposition parties including my own party and Reform UK, who have egg all over their face in respect of Alaa Abd El-Fattah and some pretty serious lessons we all need to learn. 

This goes from the present Prime Minister and Foreign secretary down: both of them were tweeting on Boxing Day how pleased they were to have him in the UK and were forced into a hugely embarrassing reverse ferret within three days;

The PM tweeted on 26th December, as you can read in this thread,

"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.

I want to pay tribute to Alaa’s family, and to all those that have worked and campaigned for this moment.

Alaa's case has been a top priority for my government since we came to office. I’m grateful to President Sisi for his decision to grant the pardon."

By yesterday evening that had changed to:

"As @Yvette Cooper MP sets out in her letter, the historic tweets by Alaa Abd El-Fattah are absolutely abhorrent.

With the rise of antisemitism, and recent horrific attacks, I know this has added to the distress of many in the Jewish community in the UK.

We are taking steps to review the information failures in this case."

The historic tweets referred to are absolutely vile, including not only an abhorrent level of antisemitism but also homophobia, hatred against all white people, with those of English descent among those he particularly despises, and including calls for the murder of both Jews and British police officers.

The letter from the Foreign Secretary which the PM refers to above includes the following

"It is apparent not only that current and former ministers were never briefed on these tweets when they spoke publicly on this case in the past, but also that the civil servants dealing with this case were also unaware."  

The Foreign Secretary's admission that the due diligence arrangements in this case were "completely inadequate" is a very mild way of putting this. I hope this is only a superlative example of classic British understatement.

We all need to learn from this. He should never have been given British citizenship - and yes, I know who was in power when he was - or encouraged or allowed to come here.

This is what Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch had to say on the subject.

"Two things can be true at the same time.

First, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, the former prisoner, should have received a free and fair trial in Egypt. 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.

There is a second truth. The comments he made on social media about violence against Jews, white people and the police, amongst others, are disgusting and abhorrent.

They were also anti-British, which begs the question how officials rubber-stamped this application without escalating to then Home Secretary.

 The Home Secretary should now look at all possible options, including whether his citizenship can be revoked and he can be removed from Britain.

 British citizenship is more than a passport. It means subscribing to our values. Our country is our home not a hotel. But let’s ask ourselves how this mad situation occurred.

 Celebrities campaigned for his release as Western politicians, various media outlets, and human rights organisations helped sanitise El-Fattah’s story. I was only aware of his case in passing when discussed in parliament and on the news.

 El-Fattah was always presented as a symbol of democratic resistance. It’s now clear from the comments which emerged that many who were supporting him had brushed aside his own published political views, including explicit endorsements of violence.

Those views were not obscure in those circles. They were serious enough to cost him a major European human rights award years ago.

It is one thing to work for someone’s release from prison if they’ve been treated unfairly as previous governments did. It is quite another to elevate them, publicly and uncritically, into a moral hero.

The British government did not just work quietly for his release, it rushed to celebrate it: our Prime Minister expressed ‘delight’.

This rush to moral posturing has consequences. Firstly, it risks validating the narrative of Western unseriousness. Middle Eastern authorities have repeatedly expressed concerns about the kid gloves with which the West treats extremists who are not allowed to operate within their borders.

There is a deeper problem here which I have spoken and written about frequently.

Too many people now enter Parliament to act as activists and campaigners, not as legislators. This is not about doing the work of a Foreign Secretary on consular cases, or about campaigning for real human rights victims like Jimmy Lai, it is about those who prioritise virtue-signalling over due-diligence.

Those who push colleagues to act quickly, publicly, and emotionally, without doing the hard work of scrutiny that governing actually requires. It is why we have Prime Minister and Home Secretary who signed letters to stop the deportation of foreign rapists and murderers.

That culture in our parliament has consequences. Yes, it is mostly on the left, but let’s be honest, all parties indulge in this nonsense, including on occasion the Conservatives. I recall senior figures in Reform UK, including David Jones, at the time a Tory MP, leading the charge for El-Fattah’s release in Parliament.

It is inconceivable that no one saw Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s published statements over the years. Ten years ago, some people may have dismissed comments advocating the killing of Jews as offensive but unserious, or merely loose talk. After 7 October 2023, that excuse no longer exists. We now live in a very different world.

 Since October 7, we have seen a sharp rise in the intimidation and terrorising of Jewish communities. We have seen antisemitic rhetoric translate into real-world harm with violence and murder in Manchester, in Bondi Beach, and elsewhere. In that context, calls for violence against Jews cannot be brushed aside."

This is Yvette Cooper's letter to the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.