Abd el-Fattah citizenship row shows shift on questions of national identity

Activist was entitled to UK passport but for a rising number of voters Britishness is something you are born with

What does it mean to be British? That question is increasingly at the heart of our national political debate. And it has become a more urgent one this week as the Conservatives and Reform UK call for the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah to be stripped of his UK citizenship over racist and offensive tweets he published 10 to 15 years ago.

Abd el-Fattah's social media activity was thrust into the spotlight after he was finally allowed to arrive in the UK last week following a decade spent as a political prisoner in Egypt. The tweets unearthed were vile: they included calls to kill all Zionists" and to burn down Downing Street during the 2011 riots. Abd el-Fattah has apologised for those remarks.