Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s name has been circling political spheres for years now as successive British governments tried to secure his freedom.

The pro-democracy activist was detained in Egypt before being sentenced to five years behind bars in 2021 and accused of “spreading fake news”.

The UN later declared his arrest was unlawful. As he is British-Egyptian dual national, both the Conservatives and Labour made an effort to lobby for his freedom.

So it was a no-brainer for Keir Starmer, when he proudly announced El-Fattah had finally been released and was back in the UK on Boxing Day.

However, it soon emerged that El-Fattah had a history of posting offensive tweets, which included calls for violence against Zionists and the police.

Suddenly, the Conservatives and Reform UK began calling for the government to revoke the El-Fattah’s citizenship.

Tory shadow home secretary Chris Philp even called him a “scumbag”.

El-Fattah quickly apologised “unequivocally” for his own “shocking and hurtful” words from a decade ago, describing the posts as “mostly expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises” in the Middle East.

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