Exeter University And Funding From The Middle East

EDM number 1581 in 2010-12, proposed by Robert Halfon on 10/03/2011.
Categorised under the topics of Higher education and Middle East.

That this House notes that senior staff of Exeter University met Colonel Gaddafi in 2003 in a bid to set up a 75 million deal which would see British universities educate elite Libyan officials; further notes that there was an announcement of a deal to set up an Exeter Centre for English in the Libyan capital of Tripoli; further notes that this deal involved confirming Exeter University's role as the lead academic adviser to Libya's National Programme for Postgraduate Development; accepts that these plans were ultimately never pursued, but notes that the European Muslim Research Centre at the University of Exeter was launched after funding provided by IslamExpo and the Cordoba Foundation (founded by Anas Al-Tikriti, a leader in the British Muslim Initiative and a former leader of the Muslim Association of Britain, both organisations being part of the UK Muslim Brotherhood); recognises that IslamExpo is an event that is strongly associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood and has been supported by organisations such as the British Muslim Initiative, the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe andthe Muslim Council of Britain; and calls on the Government to establish an independent inquiry to trace the huge amounts of money from Middle Eastern dictatorships that has flowed into British universities andto introduce a mechanism whereby for every 1 that a British university receives in donations from a totalitarian or despotic regime, such as Libya, 1 should be withdrawn from that university in public sudsidy.

This motion has been signed by a total of 1 MPs.