Andrew Neil warned that Britain “will not be able to get rid” of Alaa Abd El-Fattah amid requires his deportation. The activist, who was not too long ago launched after years of detention in Egypt, is on the centre of a row after historic social media posts emerged following his arrival in Britain final week.
The tweets seem to indicate Mr Abd El-Fattah expressing hatred of white individuals and calling for Zionists to be killed and violence towards the police. Reform UK and the Conservatives have referred to as for his UK citizenship, which he was awarded in 2021 underneath the earlier Tory authorities, to be stripped.
But Mr Neil insisted that Britain is “stuck with him” as he hit out on the Tories and Labour.
Speaking on Times Radio, the broadcaster stated: “Who’s going to take him now? You seriously think the Egyptians are going to take him back? They’re delighted to get rid of him.
“Where else are you going to ship him to? To France? I do not suppose they’ll need him.
“He’s got British citizenship, rightly or wrongly. In my view wrongly, it was performative virtue signalling by the Tories picked up by Labour and made even worse.
“We are lumbered with him, we’re caught with him, by means of the incompetence of Labour and Conservative administrations we have allowed somebody who hates Britain onto our shores, and we will be unable to do away with him.”
Mr Neil also insisted Mr Abd El-Fattah only said sorry “as a result of he is been rumbled”.
He said: “Of course he is apologising now, he is apologising now as a result of he is been rumbled, he is apologising now as a result of all this stuff have come out in public.
“He’s saying it’s out of context, how is let’s burn 10 Downing Street down, let’s kill British police, in what possible context could statements like that be justified?”
The dissident has apologised for a few of his “shocking and hurtful” remarks, which he described as “expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations”, however insisted others had been “twisted out of meaning”.
It comes as Downing Street defended Mr Abd El-Fattah’s entry into the UK.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman stated: “We welcome the return of a British citizen unfairly detained abroad, as we would in all cases and as we have done in the past.”
He continued: “That is central to Britain’s commitment to religious and political freedom.
“That stated, it does not change the truth that we now have condemned the character of those historic tweets, and we take into account them to be abhorrent, and we have been very clear about that.”
Asked whether the Government was considering steps to remove Mr Abd El-Fattah’s citizenship, No 10 said: “Clearly, we do not get into particular person citizenship instances.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2151496/andrew-neil-Alaa-Abd-El-Fattah