Case of Alaa Abd El-Fattah reveals double standards – it’s a story of national self-sabotage that threatens society
December 30, 2025 14:24
A few years ago, my mother, an Egyptian Muslim woman in her sixties, wished only to provide comfort. Her grandchild, my firstborn, was facing life-changing surgery here in Britain. As a British citizen, a Jewish researcher of national security and foreign policy, married to an English woman of Christian background, our family represented a modern mosaic of the very coexistence politicians so often praise.
We submitted the visitor visa application, meticulously providing every required document. The authorities, in their rejection letter, confirmed we had ticked all the right boxes. The sole reason for refusal was her retirement. Officials feared this meant she had no strong reason to return to Egypt and might overstay.
Here was a chance to celebrate a simple, human story of a multicultural family supporting one another, and a baby, through a crisis. Instead, my mother was treated as guilty until proven innocent. This story is not unique. It is the mundane bureaucratic hell faced by countless decent, hard-working families who play by the rules, only to find themselves presumed deceptive.
This memory returned with bitter force with the arrival in Britain of Alaa Abd El-Fattah. His case presents a stark, almost surreal, inversion of my family’s experience. Mr Abd El-Fattah is a celebrated British-Egyptian democracy activist who spent most of the past 12 years in an Egyptian prison on charges widely condemned as unjust. His release and arrival were personally heralded by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who stated the case had been a “top priority” for his government.
However, within days, historic social media posts, written when he was between 28 and 32 years old, came to light. These posts contain sentiments the government itself has labelled “abhorrent”, including calls for the killing of “Zionists” and police officers, and virulently racist remarks about British people. His subsequent apology, that the tweets were “expressions of a young man’s anger”, was swiftly undermined by an endorsement on his behalf of a social media post suggesting Britain's dismay at welcoming him was a "Zionist campaign".
The political backlash was swift, with figures from the Conservative Party and Reform UK demanding the Home Secretary revoke his citizenship and deport him. Nigel Farage declared that anyone holding such “racist and anti-British views… should not be allowed into the UK”.
This entire episode has plunged the government into a crisis of competence and priority. Downing Street’s claim that the Prime Minister was unaware of these tweets is a damning admission of failure, dishonesty or both. For years, Mr Abd El-Fattah was a high-profile consular case, championed across party lines. That basic due diligence on his publicly available online history was not undertaken by successive governments, both Conservative and Labour, is an extraordinary lapse. It reveals a system of selective attention: a retired grandmother is subjected to maximum scrutiny and deemed a threat, while a politically significant case is handled with a baffling, and dangerous, lack of curiosity.
The damage this hypocrisy inflicts is threefold.
First, it deepens a public sense of corrosive grievance and profound unfairness. Millions who navigate the UK’s exacting immigration rules, or who see loved ones rejected for visitor visas on minor or non-existent grounds, now watch as the highest offices of state celebrate a man with a criminal background who has voiced violent, hateful rhetoric and utter contempt for Britain and its people. That the Prime Minister called this a “top priority” feels, to many struggling with the cost of living or the intractable bureaucracy of the state, like a grotesque misplacement of governmental energy and moral capital.
Second, it presents a global embarrassment that actively emboldens Britain’s adversaries. The government’s defence, that it was unaware of information publicly available on the internet for years, is an admission of either staggering incompetence, deliberate omission, or both. When a nuclear superpower appears unable to conduct basic research on those it elevates, it projects a weakness that rivals are quick to exploit, undermining Britain’s standing, national security, and the credibility of its advocacy for human rights abroad.
Third, and most profoundly, it fuels a toxic turmoil around British identity and unleashes dangerous forces. The controversy has become a lightning rod for a volatile national argument about who belongs. While most rightly question the state’s judgment, others have seized the moment to promote a truly far-right sentiment: the call to deport anyone not born here, irrespective of their contribution to this country.
A recent study by the Institute for Public Policy Research indicates a shifting public mood, with a growing proportion of voters believing that “Britishness is something you are born with”, rather than obtained through shared values. By demonstrating a tolerance for intolerance, the government’s actions legitimise these exclusionary currents and take the national discourse into perilous territory.
Alarmingly, this framing imposes a profound and immoral false equivalence. People like me, British citizens by naturalisation, are not ethnically British. We won our place in this country by embracing and fighting for its values, defending its interests, and contributing through hard work.
Our commitment was legally earned, not inherited. To casually group us with those who have voiced hatred for this nation and its people is not merely an error of judgement, it is a betrayal of the very idea of a just, civic, rules-based Britain. It tells those of us who have chosen and proven our belonging that our place is conditional and subject to the same crude judgments applied to genuine extremists.
Ultimately, this is a story of Britain’s self-sabotage. It reveals a system capable of immense harshness towards the benign, the hard-working, and the vulnerable, while displaying a reckless, almost naive, generosity towards those who see us as their enemies. It showcases a governing elite that is paralysingly rigid in the administration of minor rules, yet inexplicably lax in the exercise of the most critical judgments.
In the chasm between these two stories, my mother’s and Mr Abd El-Fattah’s, lies the shattered understanding of fairness, security, and common sense that should bind a society. Until the state applies its values and its scrutiny with consistency and a firmer grasp on reality, it will continue to erode the very social trust it needs to govern. Day by day, decision by decision, it is destroying everything Britain ever stood for.
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