Why did successive British governments campaign for the release of a man they would have put in jail?

By the time of these tweets, The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 was in place. But would these tweets and others by El Fattah have been illegal in the UK?
For there to be an offence of stirring up religious or racial hatred it isn’t sufficient to be abusive or insulting, there has to be a threat. There’s case law that phrasing something as a question or saying “for all I care” doesn’t mitigate. These tweets meet the definition imo