Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
FT editor Roula Khalaf selects her favorite stories in this weekly newspaper.
Universities have been told to publish data on anti-Semitic incidents on campuses as the head of the body representing Britain’s chancellors said anti-Semitic prejudice among students is a serious problem.
Sir Keir Starmer said on Tuesday he hoped universities would “illuminate the scale of the problem” after discussing recent attacks in Downing Street, including the stabbing of two Jewish men in the Golders Green area of north London last week.
Britain is looking into whether Iran is behind attacks on Jewish communities in London as the Prime Minister said anti-Semitism was “a scourge for all of us”.
Starmer said anti-Semitism “starts with ideas, with misinformation, conspiracies and theories, and starts with attitudes that, if left unchecked, can take root and spread” as he highlighted the arts and higher education as areas that need to do more.
“When abuses occur, we call on universities to take action,” Starmer said in a speech at Downing Street. “We will now expect them to publish the scale of the problem on their campuses, as well as the specific steps they have taken to curb it. There will be zero tolerance for inaction.”
Ministers want universities to publish anonymised data on anti-Semitic incidents and what action was taken, a recommendation previously made by the Union of Jewish Students and the National Union of Students.
Universities are working to make such data available by the start of the next academic year in the autumn as they acknowledge it is a problem.
Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, a group that speaks for vice-chancellors, said on Tuesday that young people are more likely to hold anti-Semitic views as a result of extremism on social media.
He said, “That group is disproportionately represented in different types of extremist bubbles, and those extremist bubbles seem to overlap when it comes to… things that we consider anti-Semitic.”
He said tackling anti-Semitism was a “huge area of work” for universities, through guidance and training on “changing the culture” among students. “This battle must be fought through education, for example encouraging students to disagree well, educating them how you can strongly express your point of view and stay within the law.”
He said publishing the data “is not straightforward, but broadly speaking, we are supportive of making disciplinary processes more transparent”, adding that this could be implemented by the autumn.
In his speech on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said: “We cannot accept a future where communities feel safe only behind high walls. Security is necessary, but it is not sufficient. We also have to deal with the forces that give rise to this hatred.”
He further said that “one line of inquiry is whether a foreign state has been behind some of these incidents”, adding: “Our message to Iran, or any other country that might try to incite violence, hatred or division in society, is that it will not be tolerated.”
Ministers are planning to introduce legislation in this month’s king’s speech that would enable them to designate state actors such as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorist organizations.
The proposed new law would create new criminal offenses for those who support or promote groups formally recognized as state-backed threats.
Starmer, who convened ministers, police chiefs and others from civil society at Downing Street, announced an extra £1.5 million of funding to protect Jews and boost community cohesion.
The Prime Minister was surrounded last week in Golders Green amid claims from the Jewish community that the government has not done enough to protect Jews and sites such as synagogues from attacks.
Police declared a terrorist incident after the stabbing deaths of Shloim Rand, 34, and Moshe Shine, 76, in Golders Green last Wednesday. Essa Suleiman, 45, has been charged with three counts of attempted murder.
