A UK political row deepened Monday after Keir Starmer condemned historical social media posts by activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, days after he arrived in Britain.
After Starmer had welcomed Abdel Fattah’s arrival in London, he later described old posts by Abdel Fattah that were republished on X, including by celebrity and political accounts, as “deeply abhorrent.”
Starmer wrote on X on Monday, “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,” adding that his government was taking steps to review what he called “information failures” in the case.
Starmer’s post came in response to a letter from Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper to Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, in which she said she had not been aware of Abdel Fattah’s historical posts, which have been dubbed “antisemitic.”
“Unacceptable failure”
In her letter, Cooper said “the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and I were all unaware of those historical tweets, and we consider them to be abhorrent.”
“It is clear that this has been an unacceptable failure,” Cooper wrote, pointing to what she called rising antisemitism in Britain and the world. She said she felt deeply concerned because “the unexpected emergence of these historical tweets,” alongside posts by her and other senior politicians welcoming the end of the long-running case and Abdel Fattah’s reunion with his family, had increased the distress felt by Jewish communities in the UK. “I very much regret that,” she said.
The UK's top diplomat said she had asked the permanent secretary “as a matter of urgency” to review “the serious information failures in this case” and more broadly the due diligence system for high-profile consular and human rights cases for which the Foreign Ministry is responsible, “to ensure those systems are functioning properly for the future,” according to the letter.
She also sought to justify her ministry’s support for Abdel Fattah during his detention in Egypt, saying repeated human rights concerns had been raised “over very many years,” not only by successive UK governments but also by world leaders. For dual nationals, she said, policy is to provide such assistance when there are concerns about particular vulnerabilities or human rights issues.
Abdel Fattah has held British citizenship since 2021 through his mother, academic Laila Soueif, who obtained it by birth in Britain in 1956.
Cooper’s letter and Starmer’s comments came alongside Abdel Fattah’s apology for his old posts and his shock at what he described as their use “to question and attack my integrity and values.”
“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,” Abdel Fattah wrote in a Facebook post on Monday morning.
He added, “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 apologize. 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.”
Abdel Fattah’s apology may not be enough to stop a wave of complaints to the police and calls to deport him to Egypt and strip him of British citizenship. UK law allows the home secretary to deprive a person of citizenship if they decide it is “conducive to the public good,” and dual nationals can be stripped of citizenship. If Abdel Fattah were convicted of a criminal offense, he could face immediate deportation if stripped of British nationality.
However, an investigation published by the fact-checking outlet Saheeh Masr on Sunday into the source of the online campaign against Abdel Fattah concluded it began with bloggers supportive of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, using his posts supporting Palestinian resistance. It later drew participation from British MPs, celebrities, and journalists known for pro-Israel positions, before “Egyptian accounts united by their support for President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi” joined in, Saheeh Masr said.
The campaign circulated posts Abdel Fattah published on X between 2010 and 2012, including: “Dear Zionist, don’t talk to me. I am a violent person calling for the killing of all Zionists, including civilians.”
What does it mean to be British?
The issue goes beyond Abdel Fattah. Analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) shows a rise in the belief that British people should be born in the UK and that British identity is innate, rooted in ethnicity and lineage, rather than acquired.
While the British government has affirmed Abdel Fattah’s right to consular support like any other British citizen, the IPPR analysis found that 36% of respondents in an opinion poll believed a person must be born in Britain to be truly British, up from 19% in 2023. This indicated rising support for far-right narratives about national identity and a surge in ethnonationalism in Britain.
In recent months, prominent politicians have warned about the spread of ethnonationalist ideas, many of them online. The Guardian recently reported that far-right political content appeared among the five most-trending topics on social media in most weeks, based on weekly summaries commissioned by ministers.
A Guardian analysis published Monday said the approach of Reform UK and the Conservative Party to Abdel Fattah’s case showed how the boundaries of mainstream political discourse have shifted on national identity and social cohesion.
The two right-wing parties have faced sharp criticism over the past year for endorsing policies that could lead to mass deportations of migrants legally living in the UK, arguing the goal was to ensure the UK is “culturally cohesive.”
On the possibility of stripping Abdel Fattah’s citizenship, the decision lies with the home secretary, and while rare it remains possible as long as it would not render a person stateless. That condition would not apply to Abdel Fattah because he still holds Egyptian nationality.
As the campaign intensified, The Spectator, a conservative British news and culture platform, said people like Abdel Fattah “are not British in anything but an administrative sense,” arguing that “of course he should be stripped of British citizenship and deported.” This could open the door to “a wider, more pragmatic conversation” about who Britain wants to share the country with.
This supports the view that the campaign against Abdel Fattah is not merely about old posts but part of a broader right-wing campaign against migrants. In its piece titled “Could Alaa Abdel Fattah have his British citizenship revoked?” The Spectator linked the issue to Britain granting nearly 270,000 citizenships in 2024 alone.
“In fact, we’ve granted more citizenships since 2022 than Japan has since 1967. If British citizenship is to mean anything, then we must recognize that it is more than a piece of paper, and we should ask how many other new British citizens hold views as dangerous, and unconducive to the public good, as Abdel Fattah’s,” it said.
During Abdel Fattah’s imprisonment, his family endured severe hardship in seeking his release after he exceeded the legal limit for detention. His mother’s hunger strike pushed her into a critical condition that nearly cost her life, and she knocked on many doors, including the presidency, until she secured his release three months ago.
