The truth about Britain's 'box-ticking' citizenship process: Grants hit all-time high under Labour - as Starmer is told to boot out Jew-hating Egyptian 'extremist' he welcomed to the UK | Retrui News | Retrui
The truth about Britain's 'box-ticking' citizenship process: Grants hit all-time high under Labour - as Starmer is told to boot out Jew-hating Egyptian 'extremist' he welcomed to the UK
SOURCE:Daily Mail
Almost 270,000 applications were rubber-stamped in 2024 - enough to fill cities the size of Newcastle, Brightonor Plymouth, and double levels seen a decade ago.
Britain's citizenship process was today thrown into fresh bedlam as figures showed the number of grants being doled out has hit an all-time high under Labour's watch.
Almost 270,000 applications were rubber-stamped in 2024 – enough to fill cities the size of Newcastle, Brighton or Plymouth, and double levels seen a decade ago.
Campaigners have now demanded Britain stops handing citizenships out 'like confetti', accusing the Home Office of operating a 'box-ticking' process that barely vets migrants.
Keir Starmer's government is embroiled in a huge row over the handling of Egyptian dissident Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who was granted citizenship in 2021 despite calling for the murder of Jews and police officers. The 44-year-old also voiced his hatred of white people in a series of vile outbursts on social media.
Freed from jail in Egypt following a long campaign, El-Fattah was welcomed back by the Prime Minister when he landed in London on Boxing Day.
Robert Bates, of the Centre for Migration Control, told the Mail: 'Britain's citizenship laws are a soft touch when compared to most normal countries.
'The value of a British passport has been cheapened and awarded to those who are, quite frankly, not British.
'The soaring grant numbers show Starmer's government is happy to throw around passports like confetti, storing up serious problems for the future of our country.
Keir Starmer's government is battling a huge backlash over the handling of Egyptian dissident Alaa Abd El-Fattah (pictured in Cairo on November 2014)
'It is too easy for unassimilated individuals who hold strident anti-British attitudes to become citizens, exposing the public to grave risks and importing those who wish harm to our way of life.'
Alp Mehmet, of Migration Watch UK, told the Daily Mail: 'Securing British citizenship has become little more than a box-ticking exercise.
'We hand it out like confetti: in 2024 alone, Britain granted more citizenships than Japan did in nearly 60 years.
'The ease with which it is obtained, and full access to rights and benefits that British citizens are entitled to, are additional incentives.
'Moreover, the process is now so lax that there is scant vetting to make sure migrants have not only earned the privilege but have also shown a genuine commitment to Britain.'
El-Fattah was granted British citizenship in 2021 on the basis that his mother was born in the UK.
His application as approved while behind bars in Egypt, where he was charged with spreading false news about the country's authoritarian government.
He landed in the UK on Boxing Day following a long campaign by his family, lobbying by the British government, and the backing of celebrities such as Dame Judi Dench and Olivia Colman.
Sir Keir Starmer posted a statement saying he was 'delighted' by El Fattah's arrival in the UK on Friday.
But within minutes, critics unearthed a string of vile historical online posts from the activist.
In 2010 he called for 'the killing of all Zionists, including civilians'. He described the British as 'dogs and monkeys', and spoke of his hatred for white people, boasting he was 'proud of being racist against whites'.
He also advocated the murder of Jews and boasted of his hatred for white people, saying: 'I seriously, seriously, seriously hate white people, especially those of English or Dutch or German descent.'
Pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah was in prison for almost all of the past 12 years
Who is eligible to become a British citizen?
Unlike in the United States, you do not automatically get British citizenship if you were born in the UK.
Instead you can become eligible by a number of other ways, such as:
Marrying a British citizen
Having lived in the UK for more than five years with indefinite leave to remain
If you're an Irish citizen who has lived in the UK for five years
If you have settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme
If you have a British parent
If you have another type of British nationality, such as a connection with Gibraltar or having lived in Hong Kong
You're stateless or have previously gave up (renounced) your citizenship
And in a response to an online conversation about TV classics Dr Who and Monty Python in 2010, he wrote: 'I'm far from British'.
In a post in August 2011, when London was in the grip of riots, El-Fattah wrote: 'Go burn the city or Downing Street or hunt police, you fools.' He said the police were 'not human', adding: 'We should just kill them all.'
The row over his citizenship comes despite his tweets leading to his nomination for an international human rights prize being rescinded in 2014.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has since acknowledged it was a mistake to give him citizenship, but said the decision was 'rubber-stamped' by officials without escalating the case to the then home secretary Priti Patel.
She said it was 'inconceivable' that no-one in Government was aware of El-Fattah's previous statements, adding: 'Another serious problem is that there will be junior officials and decision-makers within parts of the Civil Service who hold these views, or see nothing wrong with them.'
Statistics from the Home Office show that the number of citizenship applications being granted was as low as 15,000 in the early 1960s.
But this has spiralled to the two highest numbers on record under Labour's watch, with 269,000 in 2024 and 241,000 for the year ending September 2025.
The two biggest surges over the decades came in the New Labour era of the late 1990s and early 2000s and in the post-2020 immigration boom.
The outcry over Britain's lax citizenship system has only intensified the backlash Sir Keir has received for saying El-Fattah was 'welcome' in the UK
How hard is it to become a British citizen?
As well as meeting the eligibility criteria, to become a citizens through the naturalisation process, candidates must also:
Pay the £1,735 fee
Make the UK their future home
Pass the Life in the UK test
Show they have sufficient knowledge of English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic
Be of 'good character' eg. lack of criminality, notoriety, dishonesty
Provide details of two referees they know and can help prove their identity
Enroll their biometric details
Attend a citizenship ceremony where they make an oath of allegiance
Most citizenship grants come from the naturalisation process, which most people become eligible for a year after achieving permanent residence, which itself normally takes five years.
This means a surge in citizenship grants usually comes years after a spike in immigration numbers.
Once immigrants become British citizens, they can live and work in the UK free of any immigration controls.
They can also apply for a British passport, register to vote in all forms of elections and referenda, and share in all the other rights and responsibilities of their status.
One case unearthed involved staff accepting an application from an asylum-seeker – unaware that he had admitted to a fatal stabbing in his homeland.
The outcry over Britain's lax citizenship system has only intensified the backlash Sir Keir has received for saying El-Fattah was 'welcome' in the UK.
El-Fattah issued a partial apology for his online rants, which are being assessed by the Metropolitan Police. But he also 'liked' a post on Facebook claiming that he is the victim of a 'campaign launched by the Zionists'.
Yvette Cooper has ordered an urgent inquiry into 'serious information failures' that left ministers blindsided by El-Fattah's extremist comments, despite them being a matter of public controversy for years.
The Foreign Secretary said checks on his background had been 'completely inadequate'.
Sir Keir later acknowledged that El-Fattah's social media posts were 'abhorrent'.
But Downing Street insisted the PM was not aware of them when he voiced his 'delight' at El-Fattah's arrival in the UK last week.
However he did not delete his tweet welcoming him to the UK. And asked if he remained 'delighted' now that he had seen details of El-Fattah's comments, the Prime Minister's spokesman said: 'We welcome the return of a British citizen unfairly detained abroad, as we would in all cases.'
Alaa Abd el-Fattah stands next to his mother, Laila Soueif, and sister, Sanaa, at home in Giza, Egypt
El-Fattah's case has been a personal crusade for Sir Keir. In 2022 he raised the case in the Commons, ironically noting at the time that the dissident had been 'jailed for the crime of posting on social media'.
The Conservatives branded El-Fattah a 'scumbag' who should be deported.
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said: 'It beggars belief that Starmer still "welcomes" this anti-British, anti-white, anti-Semitic extremist to our country. It's clear he won't revoke his citizenship, won't deport him and doesn't regret bringing him here.'
Fellow Tory MP Jack Rankin said: 'Of course El-Fattah is not welcome here. He's not British, he was automatically granted citizenship by the Whitehall machine because of the courts applying European human rights laws, and the Home Secretary should use her powers to remove him immediately.'
Reform UK pledged a change in the law to make it easier to deport dual nationals 'who have expressed vile and anti-British views'.
Leader Nigel Farage said: 'Both Tory and Labour governments have opened our doors to evil people.
'Reform will change the law and make our country safe again. Will Starmer do the same?'
How the UK's hands were tied by European human rights laws
European human rights laws prevented checks on Alaa Abd El-Fattah's 'good character' from blocking his right to British citizenship.
Government sources said the Home Office had no power to prevent the Egyptian dissident's citizenship in 2021 following a Supreme Court ruling based on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
El-Fattah was granted British citizenship while in an Egyptian prison on the basis that his mother was born in this country.
In the past, officials were able to make an assessment of the 'good character' of applicants, but this changed following a landmark human rights case brought by an American murderer David Frenton Bangs.
Bangs, who was born to a British mother and American father, was convicted of murder in 1993 and released 19 years later.
When he was subsequently convited of using threatening words in 2013, the Home Office tried to deport him.
He launched a human rights claim based on the ECHR, saying the attempt discriminated against his right to a family life.
Bangs won and the law was changed in 2019 to drop the requirement for migrants claiming citizenship through their mother's bloodline to pass a 'good character' test.
It remains in place for those seeking citizenship through other routes.
El-Fattah's case is notable because he was granted British citizenship in 2021 on the basis that his mother, Laila Soueif, was born in the UK while her mother was studying here as a student.
This meant the family was able to apply for her to transmit her citizenship to her son, even though he was living abroad at the time, under a little-known immigration law.
The obscure route also meant that Mr Fattah would not have to go through the usual vetting and 'good character' tests faced by migrants who took a different route.
He avoided this test – under which critics claim he would have failed – following a landmark human rights case in which an American murderer defeated the British Government.
Reform UK policy chief Zia Yusuf said both Labour and the Conservatives had questions to answer. He said: 'In Britain if you threaten to kill a protected minority, you're jailed.
'If you threaten to kill white people, British people, Americans, gays and Jews - like El-Fattah, you get granted citizenship by the Tories and celebrated by the Labour Prime Minister.'
However, it is understood that Downing Street believes that the high bar of someone having their citizenship revoked is unlikely to be met in this case.
This is because they must have either obtained citizenship by fraud or be deemed to pose a significant national security threat.
And any decision of this nature could also be subject to a lengthy legal challenge.
The UK also has responsibilities under international law to avoid leaving people stateless, meaning British citizenship can only be stripped from someone eligible to apply for citizenship in another country.
In November, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans to make it take longer for migrants to get settled status - a precursor to citizenship.
The plans will double the minimum qualifying period from five to ten years of lawful residence, with the expectation that migrants should be in work and contributing if they wish to settle.
Illegal migrants could have to wait 30 years for settlement and migrants who claim benefits could wait up to 20 years to settle.
A Home Office spokesperson said: 'These numbers are due to the unacceptably high levels of net migration in recent years, which has since fallen by two-thirds under this government.
'As the Home Secretary has said, becoming a British citizen is a privilege, not a right.
'We recently announced the biggest overhaul of Britain's settlement model in 50 years, based on contribution, integration and respect for our laws.'