The United Arab Emirates has removed British universities from its generous foreign study funding programme, reportedly over fears its young people could be influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood on radicalised UK campuses.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said “Decent Muslim countries cannot believe how weak the UK is on extremism” as it was claimed the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was blocking its young people from going to university in Britain over extremism fears. The Financial Times states the UAE revised its approved list of foreign universities where young Emirates could take advantage of their government’s well-funded grant scheme, and no British universities now feature, despite many of them being among the highest-regarded in the world.
The very best-performing students studying abroad from the Emirates get their tuition fees, flights, living costs, and health insurance paid if they study a programme their government considers useful. Previously, the UK had been among the favourites for UAE students.
The report states when the change was noticed the British government approached the UAE for clarity, and was told it was not a mistake but a deliberate decision.
The Times states the UAE has cited the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on British campuses as a major reason for the change. The Brotherhood has been called an “incubator of Sunni Islamic terrorism” and is banned by the UAE’s comparatively liberal government as a terrorist organisation.
In 2025, the French government leaked a major internal report on the Muslim Brotherhood, finding it had spent decades infiltrating institutions in Europe and migrant communities to defeat the Western world. Both the United Kingdom and France have considered banning the Brotherhood in decades past, but have never made the move. Brexit’s Nigel Farage has said he would do so if elected to power, a move for which he has received accusations of being influenced by the UAE.
Farage’s London mayoral candidate Laila Cunningham, who is of Egyptian-heritage and professes Muslim faith, expressed her concern about the influence of the Brotherhood in the UK. She said: “The Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed across the Middle East because they know exactly what it is. The ideological backbone of Islamist terror.
“Yet Britain lets it operate freely and even grants asylum to its convicted bomb makers. We are sitting ducks. It’s treason against the British people.”
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