Civil servants brought up the case of British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah so often it became a “running joke” in Whitehall, a disgraced ex-Starmer aide claims.

Former director of strategy Paul Ovenden, who quit as an adviser to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in September after he was exposed for sending disgusting text messages about Labour MP Diane Abbott, accused Whitehall of being “obsessed with fringe issues.”

Mr Fattah, a democracy activist held in Egyptian detention for over a decade, recently became the target of racist calls to strip him of his British citizenship after the emergence of 15-year-old social media posts calling for violence against zionists and the police.

Mr Ovenden branded Whitehall’s interest in Mr Fattah’s case “a totem of the ceaseless sapping of time and energy by people obsessed with fringe issues.”

Writing in The Times, he said: “Fattah’s sudden crashing into public consciousness has revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time. 

“But we are only seeing a tiny part of it. Like an iceberg, the vast mass remains hidden from view, buttressed in silence.”

He affected to thank Mr Fattah, saying he “can’t help but marvel at all he has done to reveal the true nature of the state to his fellow British citizens” before asking how the government could let itself be distracted by such a case during a time of “fundamental problems” for Britain.

“The obvious question this raises is how a government elected on a vast parliamentary majority, at a time of mounting public impatience, with fundamental problems to fix, allows itself to become distracted by this sort of political folderol,” Mr Ovenden said.

Describing a vague set of groups made up of regulators, campaigners and trade bodies, Mr Ovenden attacked campaign groups and NGOs, saying the government was distracted by what he termed the “stakeholder state.”

Mr Ovenden left his position after a series of sexual remarks he made about Diane Abbott MP in 2017, which were published by ITV News.

Mr Fattah has described his more controversial posts as “mostly expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises.”