The United Arab Emirates is restricting students from enrolling at British universities over fears that campuses are being radicalised by Islamist groups.
Officials with knowledge of the situation told The Times that federal funding was being limited for citizens who hope to study in the UK, citing concerns about the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood among other issues.
The group is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UAE, which has long campaigned for European nations including Britain to do the same.
The Emirati government is not imposing a blanket ban on enrollments, meaning that richer families can still send their children to study in the UK if they pay for the fees out of their own pockets.
It will continue to provide significant funds for citizens who seek to earn university degrees elsewhere.
Generous grants are given to UAE citizens for overseas study through programmes managed by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The funding covers tuition, living stipends, travel and health insurance for top-performing students who are pursuing degrees in priority fields.
The UAE has cracked down hard on the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East, believing that the Islamist group poses a serious threat to its autocratic but relatively secular and socially liberal system.
Dozens of suspected Brotherhood members were rounded up and jailed in the country and the government supported the Egyptian military when it overthrew the group’s president, Mohamed Morsi in 2013. It has since actively supported factions in Libya and Sudan it believed were fighting against the group.
Emirati officials have also put pressure on Western democracies to take similar action, warning that the Brotherhood is spreading extremism across the European continent.
The UAE led a lobbying campaign which prompted David Cameron’s Conservative government to launch an inquiry into the group in 2014.
The inquiry, led by Sir John Jenkins, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, concluded that the group’s beliefs were opposed to British values but did not find enough evidence to ban the movement.
The US has designated Muslim Brotherhood offshoots and individuals as terrorists but stopped short of labelling the group as such.
In France, meanwhile, President Macron ordered his government to draw up proposals to tackle its influence and the spread of political Islam in May last year.
The move came after the release of a 75-page UAE-inspired government report that Macron’s office said: “Clearly establishes the anti-Republican and subversive nature of the Muslim Brotherhood” and “proposes ways to address this threat.”
There are concerns in Britain that the group has infiltrated university campuses, using student organisations to invite islamist speakers to give lectures that flirt with extremism.
The UAE’s move to restrict its students from studying in the UK over the issue could have a major impact on their numbers on campuses, which have doubled between 2017 and 2024, to 8,500.
The highest numbers are at the University of Central Lancashire, followed by the University of Manchester, University of Leeds, King’s College London and University College London.
One expert on the Middle East said that the Emiratis were “obsessed” with the Muslim Brotherhood and it was their “bogeyman” but that the brotherhood was more of an ideology than a structured organisation.
They added: “They complain to the UK about the Muslim Brotherhood to cause a diplomatic stink until they get what they want. It’s often an internal thing. I don’t believe our universities are infested with the Muslim Brotherhood, it’s all about positioning.
“It’s a way of threatening young students to behave, saying in essence, whatever you do, don’t join the Muslim Brotherhood if you’re in the UK. It’s like a warning shot to students to dabble at their peril.”
The source said that Saudi Arabia had forced the UAE to pull out of Yemen, possibly prompting them to lash out abroad.
