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Liz Truss changes her tune on Abdel Fattah

The former prime minister was once a strong supporter of the jailed Egyptian democracy activist

Liz Truss speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in the US. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Leading the demands for the deportation of Egyptian democracy activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, whose old social media posts calling for Zionists and police to be killed have emerged, was Liz Truss, the short-lived former prime minister.

“The el-Fattah case shows the way that the human-rights/NGO industrial complex has completely captured the British state,” she fumed on X. 

“The ECHR/Human Rights Act is at the heart of this. The ideology is deep-rooted in the bureaucracy. And we now have a Prime Minister who is part of this complex.”

Keir Starmer, who said he was “delighted” that Abdel Fattah was in the UK following his release from an Egyptian jail was not, however, the first occupant of Number 10 to have previously been effusive in his support of the campaigner.

There was the foreign secretary who told the Commons, after being asked about Abdel Fattah’s imprisonment by Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran in 2022, “I assure the honourable lady that we are working hard to secure Alaa Abdel Fattah’s release. [then Foreign Office minister] Lord Ahmad has met the family and I am seeking a meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister who is due to visit the United Kingdom shortly, where I will raise this case.”

That foreign secretary who would go on to become PM, albeit very briefly, was… Liz Truss.

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