On Boxing Day, Keir Starmer declared his delight at Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s final arrival in Britain. The travel ban the Egyptian government had imposed on the British-Egyptian dissident was lifted earlier this week – he had previously spent nearly 10 years in jail, mainly as a result of his opposition to the Egyptian government. His case was a “top priority” of the UK government, according to the Prime Minister’s tweet last week. That jubilation didn’t last long before the discovery of Fattah’s historic tweets.
A man presented as a noble democratic campaigner turns out to be “proud of being racist against whites”, suggested rioters would do better to burn down Downing Street, and supported the killing of “all Zionists” in tweets from 15 years ago.
How did it come to be that he earned such support from Britain? Starmer had made multiple calls to the Egyptian president, and National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell had personally pleaded with Cairo on his behalf.
It brings to mind an example from the mid-19th century. David Pacifico was a Portuguese Jewish merchant living in Athens in the 1800s. In 1847, during a burst of anti-Jewish hostility, his house was ransacked by a mob. He sought compensation by the Greek government. When they failed to meet his claims, Pacifico had recourse to a very particular form of action: a blockade of Greece’s ports by Britain’s Royal Navy. Unsurprisingly, the authorities in Athens swiftly coughed up.
The world’s then-mightiest navy backed Pacifico because he was a British subject, having been born in Gibraltar. In parliament, Lord Palmerston, the foreign secretary, defended deploying the navy with reference to the famous Roman declaration “Civis Romanus sum” i.e.“I am a Roman citizen” – a phrase used by Roman citizens to claim legal protections and rights. All British subjects globally, Palmerston asserted, were entitled to their government’s protection. It was a noble sentiment, albeit one easily enforced when a gunboat settled most international disputes.
Like Pacifico, Fattah is a British citizen; like Pacifico, that was the case despite his living abroad; like Pacifico, the British government sought to defend his rights against persecution abroad.
Unlike Pacifico, however, Fattah was not British by birth. Citizenship was granted in 2021, on the basis that his mother had been born here, as part of efforts to see the activist’s release from Egyptian prison.
The example of Pacifico is telling – it shows Britain at the peak of its Victorian self-confidence, when Britain could afford to throw its weight around over even the most obscure of its objects.
By contrast, in spite of Britain’s current state and the country’s myriad problems, extraordinary efforts have been expended on Fattah – a man few would cross the road for after a cursory glimpse of his X feed.
Fattah has apologised for his “shocking and hurtful” remarks – the “expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations” – and has said that some of his tweets had been “twisted out of their meaning”. No 10 claims that Starmer was unaware of them. Did nobody do a background check on Fattah before he was welcomed with open arms? A cursory review would have noted that Fattah’s social media history had seen him dropped from the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize in 2014.
Your next read
square ESME GORDON-CRAIG‘I’m unemployed, living with my parents and I have £80k of debt’: life after uni today
square PATRICK COCKBURNTrump’s peace plan for the Middle East has turned it into a crucible of war
square MATTHEW ELLIOTT Who broke Britain?The Frenchman whose wild ideas poisoned our politics and economy
square PATRICK COCKBURNTrump’s optimism on peace in Ukraine may look heroic – but he’s dangerously wrong
Indeed, any Tory attempts to make hay with the story have fallen flat for the simple reason that the Conservatives are just as complicit in this farce. It was Priti Patel who granted Fattah his citizenship as home secretary. Successive Conservative foreign secretaries – including one Liz Truss and one James Cleverly – lobbied the Egyptians for his release. They seem to have been no more able to google Fattah than their Labour counterparts.
Instead, this is a gift for Reform UK, a perfect encapsulation of the collective incompetence of our political establishment. A Prime Minister who seems to have prioritised freeing a foreign activist with a history of supporting violent causes while flailing on much more significant issues for the electorate: stopping the boats, cutting NHS waiting lists or growing the economy. And an opposition that claims to be different, but is hamstrung by 14 long years in which they committed the exact same errors of judgement.
Like the creatures at the end of Animal Farm, looking from pig to man and man to pig and being unable to tell which was which, many voters glance between the two old parties and despairingly conclude that they are just as rotten and incompetent as each other. In this pound shop remake of the Pacifico affair, Nigel Farage takes on the role of the gunboat – not to defend British liberties abroad, but to blow up Westminster.
Hence then, the article about the latest tory attempt to skewer labour has fallen flat and is a gift for farage was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The latest Tory attempt to skewer Labour has fallen flat – and is a gift for Farage )
Also on site :
- Samsung Plans to Bring Google Photos to Samsung AI TV Lineup, Helping Users Relive Their Favorite Memories on the Big Screen
- Arrowhead Stadium Worker Reveals 'Beautifully Kind' Gesture From Taylor Swift During Chiefs' Christmas Day Game
- Hilton assisted living facility evacuated overnight due to water leak