JENNIFER CAWTHORNE
In a move that reeks of political opportunism and moral bankruptcy, Starmer recently expressed his “delight” at the return of Alaa Abd El-Fattah to the United Kingdom. This Egyptian -British activist promotes virulent hatred that should have disqualified him from entry into the UK, let alone a welcome from the British PM. Abd El-Fattah’s social media posts advocated the murder of Jews and British people, labelling Brits as “dogs and slaves,” urging the burning of Downing Street, and declaring that police “aren’t human – just kill them all.” He has also expressed a desire for more suicide bombings. Yet, Starmer, Yvette Cooper and the complicit machinery of the civil service rolled out the metaphorical red carpet, prioritising virtue-signalling over the safety of the nation. This incident exposes the grotesque double standards of an extreme leftist establishment that panders to Islamist extremism while slamming the door on right-wing commentators who challenge progressive orthodoxies without ever inciting violence. It is a damning indictment of hypocrisy that in effect promotes terrorism and reveals a government more interested in appeasing radical elements than protecting its citizens.
Alaa Abd El-Fattah was recently released from Egyptian custody after years of imprisonment and was portrayed by Starmer’s government as a victim of authoritarianism. But a cursory examination of his online history—readily available to anyone with an internet connection—paints a far more sinister picture. Abd El-Fattah has espoused views that are not merely controversial but actively dangerous, views are a direct endorsement of violence against an entire group based on their identity or beliefs. Furthermore, his contempt for British society is palpable: referring to Brits as subhuman and advocating for arson against the very seat of British government as well as urging the wholesale slaughter of policemen. These are not the ramblings of a misguided youth; they are the calculated expressions of a man with a worldview steeped in hatred and extremism.
What makes this all the more infuriating is the context in which Starmer extended his welcome. As Prime Minister, Starmer promised to do “whatever it takes” to protect Jewish communities in Britain, a pledge that rings hollow given his continued appeasement and support for militant Islamism and now freshly renewed by his enthusiasm for Abd El-Fattah’s return. This is a deliberate pandering to Islamist extremism, a calculated move to court favour with certain voter blocs that prioritise anti-Western narratives over liberal democratic values. Starmer’s “delight” is a slap in the face to every British Jew who has faced rising antisemitic attacks, to every police officer and to every citizen who expects their PM to uphold the rule of law without favouritism. In embracing Abd El-Fattah, Starmer has signalled that extremism is tolerable if it aligns with progressive internationalist optics, freeing a “dissident” from a non-Western regime trumps vetting for hate speech that could inspire domestic terror.
But Starmer does not act alone in this farce. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, the supposed guardian of Britain’s borders and internal security, shares equal blame. As the minister responsible for immigration and counter-terrorism, Cooper’s role demands rigorous scrutiny of individuals entering or residing in the UK, especially those with dual nationality like Abd El-Fattah. Yet a man with a history of advocating murder and destruction was not only allowed back but celebrated. Cooper’s involvement, or lack thereof, exposes her as a hypocrite of the highest order or utterly incompetent. Cooper has been vocal in condemning “far-right” extremism, pushing for stricter online hate speech laws and surveillance of domestic dissenters. But when it comes to Islamist-inspired hatred, her resolve evaporates. This selective enforcement is the hallmark of woke politics: quick to label conservative voices as “dangerous” while turning a blind eye to radical Islamism that poses a genuine threat. Cooper’s pandering cannot be just incompetence; it is a betrayal of her oath to protect the British public, prioritising political correctness over public safety.
The civil service, that unelected permanent government, emerges as perhaps the most insidious culprit in this saga. These faceless mandarins, with access to intelligence briefings from MI5 and MI6, foreign office dossiers, and vast digital archives, claim ignorance of Abd El-Fattah’s “abhorrent” views. Downing Street’s post-facto admission that Starmer was “unaware” of the tweets is a risible excuse, one that insults the intelligence of the British people. In an era where social media scrutiny is standard for even minor public figures, how could the entire apparatus of the state fail to perform a basic background check on a “top priority” case? This is not a mere lapse; it is wilful negligence, if not outright complicity. The civil service, infused with progressive biases, has long been accused of institutional wokeness, favouring narratives of “decolonisation” and “anti-imperialism” that excuse extremism from certain quarters. By facilitating Abd El-Fattah’s return without red flags, they have pandered to Islamist ideologies, allowing hatred to fester under the guise of humanitarianism. This hypocrisy erodes trust in institutions, turning the civil service into a tool for ideological agendas rather than neutral governance.
The starkest illustration of this double standard comes when we compare the treatment of Abd El-Fattah to that of right-wing commentators and politicians from abroad who hold anti-woke opinions but have never incited violence. Consider the cases of individuals like Lauren Southern, a Canadian journalist and filmmaker known for her critiques of mass immigration and identity politics. In 2018, Southern was detained at the UK border and denied entry, ostensibly for distributing “racist” materials questioning Allah’s divinity. She had no history of violence or calls to harm; her “crime” was challenging the woke consensus on multiculturalism. Similarly, Austrian activist Martin Sellner, leader of the Identitarian Movement, was banned from entering the UK in 2019 for his anti-Islamisation views. Sellner advocates for cultural preservation without violence, yet he was deemed a threat to “community cohesion.” Even Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a vocal critic of radical Islam, faced entry bans in the past for his film “Fitna,” which highlighted Koranic verses linked to extremism. Again, no incitement to murder, just uncomfortable truths.
Right-wing figures like Southern, Sellner, and Wilders are barred for their opposition to unchecked immigration, gender ideology, or cultural relativism, views shared by millions of ordinary Britons. They pose no physical threat, yet the Home Office, under successive governments, treats them as pariahs. Meanwhile, Abd El-Fattah, whose rhetoric could inspire terrorist acts, is welcomed with open arms. This disparity is not accidental; it is the product of a woke elite that views right-wing populism as the ultimate evil while excusing leftist or Islamist extremism as “resistance.” It is a hypocritical calculus that endangers lives: by silencing peaceful dissenters, they amplify radical voices, fostering an environment where extremism thrives unchecked.
This pattern extends beyond borders to domestic policy. Starmer’s administration has cracked down on “far-right” protests, jailing participants in the 2024 riots for inflammatory social media posts, while ignoring similar vitriol from pro-Palestine marches where chants of “from the river to the sea” echo genocidal intent. The civil service’s role in advising on these matters reveals a bias: reports from bodies like the Extremism Analysis Unit focus disproportionately on “white supremacism” while downplaying Islamist threats. In allowing Abd El-Fattah’s return, they have effectively imported a potential radicaliser, all while denying platforms to anti-woke thinkers who could counter such narratives. This is not equality under the law; it is ideological favouritism, where wokeness dictates who is “acceptable” and who is not.
In conclusion, acts like allowing Alaa Abd El-Fattah into the country, even celebrating his return despite his advocacy for murder and destruction, amount to nothing less than supporting violence and terrorism. Starmer, Cooper, and the civil service’s hypocrisy in pandering to this extremism while barring harmless anti-woke voices at home and from abroad exposes a rotten core in British governance. The excuse that they “didn’t know” of his views is risible, a transparent lie in an age of digital transparency. It suggests either staggering incompetence or deliberate omission to appease radical elements. Britain deserves better: a government that prioritizes security over signalling, truth over wokeness, and equality over double standards. Until then, this episode stands as a chilling reminder of how far our leaders will go to betray the nation they swore to protect.
This article (Starmer’s Embrace of Extremism) was created and published by Free Speech Backlash and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Jennifer Cawthorne
See Related Article Below
If Labour MPs have any sense, they will boot Starmer out before New Year, says Lord Hannan
Keir Starmer, knight of the forensic syllogism, has been ripped to shreds not by the usual suspects on the Tory benches, nor by the bearded YouTube Bolsheviks, but by that most unforgiving of forces: his own prior certainties.
He has spent years insisting that words matter, that speech has consequences, that standards must be enforced ruthlessly and without fear or favour. And then, with a flourish that would make even the most reckless world leader wince, he welcomed Abd El-Fattah with open arms, cameras rolling, moral halo firmly in place.
Cue the sound of crockery smashing.
The brilliant Lord Hannan, in a characteristically brisk and lucid intervention, hits the nail squarely, thunderously, on the head. The Abd El-Fattah case, once you sweep away the emotive confetti, is actually rather simple – if one is prepared to apply principles consistently, a habit Starmer has long demanded of others but now seems curiously unwilling to practise himself, then Starmer should admit defeat and accept that he has made an indefensible error. Or is he just too brazen to see what a hypocrite he truly is? I fear it’s the latter.
Let us establish some fundamentals. It should not be a crime… not here, not in a liberal democracy… to tweet that the British are “dogs and monkeys”, nor to announce that you “really really hate white people”. Such utterances are repellent, divisive and idiotic, but criminal? No. Free speech, like free markets, only works if it protects what we despise as well as what we applaud.
But, and this is where the Starmer problem metastasises, the government must apply the same standard across the board. If this is the rule, then it must also hold in cases such as Graham Linehan and Lucy Connolly. One cannot have a speech code that resembles a malfunctioning traffic light: green for one tribe, flashing amber for another, instant red for the politically inconvenient.
None of this is to suggest that such views are acceptable. They are not. They corrode social trust and poison civic life. Nor does opposition to the dictatorship in Egypt automatically confer sainthood. It is perfectly possible, indeed rather common, to be both an opponent of tyranny and an obnoxious extremist.
Still, as Lord Hannan rightly says, even obnoxious extremists deserve a fair trial. Abd El-Fattah did not get one in Egypt. On that, most fair-minded people can agree.
But here comes the bit that Starmer and his advisers appear to have vaulted clean over: none of the above makes Abd El-Fattah a desirable immigrant. The notion that Britain should not only admit him but lionise him, pose for photographs, offer warm words, polish the moral brass, is not noble. It is idiotic.
Mistakes happen. Heaven knows they happen in our creaking, Kafkaesque civil service. It is entirely plausible that nobody bothered to check Abd El-Fattah’s public statements before rolling out the red carpet. But, and this is the killer blow, Starmer has never allowed anyone else that excuse. Not ministers. Not officials. Not private citizens. He cannot now scuttle behind it like a man diving under the table when the bill arrives.
This is why the episode is so damaging. It does not merely reveal an error of judgment; it confirms what critics have long called the “Two-Tier Keir” problem. Call for the shooting of Israelis or white South Africans, boast of hating British colonialists, and you are elevated as a heroic victim of oppression. Insult immigrants or ethnic minorities, and the dock awaits. One law, two outcomes.
The issue will not go away. It will not be smothered by a reshuffle or buried beneath a well-timed foreign crisis. It will dog Starmer for the rest of his premiership, yapping at his heels every time he invokes fairness, equality before the law, or the sanctity of standards.
Lord Hannan’s conclusion is as cold as it is surgical: if Labour MPs have any sense of self-preservation, they will boot him out before the New Year. Whether they do so is another matter. But the damage is done.
In politics, hypocrisy is the one sin for which there is no absolution, and Keir Starmer, having built his career as the high priest of moral exactitude, now finds himself condemned by his own gospel.
He won’t last long.
This article (If Labour MPs have any sense, they will boot Starmer out before New Year, says Lord Hannan) was created and published by Conservative Post and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author CP
Featured image: Matt Goodwin (modified)
Leave a Reply