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LONDON: British universities must take stronger action to protect Jewish students, the government said on Saturday, after a deadly attack on a synagogue in northern England and amid concerns over antisemitism on campuses in Britain and the United States.
Young people must be equipped to spot and challenge misinformation online, the government said, urging universities to use every tool available to confront hate and division.
“One instance of antisemitic abuse is one too many,” education minister Bridget Phillipson said in a statement.
“So I’m clear: the buck stops with universities when it comes to ridding their campuses of hate — and they have my full backing to use their powers to do so.”
On October 2, a British man of Syrian descent drove a car into pedestrians and then began stabbing several people on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, outside Manchester’s Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue. Two men died in the attack.
In the aftermath, Phillipson wrote to university vice-chancellors urging “practical and proportionate steps” to ensure campuses remain safe spaces. New rules introduced in August require institutions to have clear policies and reporting mechanisms to address harassment of all kinds.
Last year, Britain reported its second-worst year in modern times for antisemitism, with more than 3,500 incidents recorded, the Community Security Trust, which provides security to Jewish organizations across the country, said earlier this year.
Data from Britain’s interior ministry on Thursday showed Jews suffered the highest rate of religious hate crimes in England and Wales in the year to March.
There has also been a surge in antisemitic incidents reported on US college campuses amid tensions over the Israel-Gaza war.
The Trump administration has threatened to cut federal funds to universities over campus pro-Palestinian protests. It says universities allowed displays of antisemitism. 

BERLIN: Germany may be close to finalizing a deal with the Taliban government in Afghanistan for more regular deportation flights, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said in an interview published on Saturday.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in power since May, has promised to speed up expulsions of Afghan asylum seekers who have been found guilty of crimes in Germany.
But the returns are controversial because Berlin does not recognize the Taliban administration in Kabul.
Dobrindt told the online news site The Pioneer that discussions about more frequent flights were at a “very advanced” stage.
“So, we can assume that we will have an agreement very soon. We want to carry out regular deportations and that does not only mean using charter flights but also by commercial flights,” he added.
Germany has made two deportation flights of convicted Afghans since 2021: 81 were returned in July this year and 28 last year.
The charter flights were organized by Qatar in a mediating role.
Germany’s interior ministry announced last month that direct discussions were taking place with the Taliban authorities.
Ministry staff last weekend held “technical discussions” with officials in Kabul to organize deportation flights, Dobrindt said.
The conservative minister said he “will do everything to make it work,” including going to the Afghan capital, adding that he wanted to “try the same thing with Syria.”
Like a number of European countries, Germany announced a freeze on asylum applications of Syrian nationals after the fall of president Bashar Assad.
Merz is banking on a tougher immigration policy to combat the rise of the far right in Germany, which is neck-and-neck with the conservatives in recent opinion polls.