UK Politics

Support grows for Stop the Boycott campaign

The Stop the Boycott campaign gathers pace today with national press ads condemning the proposed boycott of Israeli universities by British institutions and calling on the University and Colleges Union Congress to ballot its full membership.

The ads are signed by 250 academics and thinkers. They call the boycott “bad for Britain, bad for academic freedom, bad for Palestinians and bad for peace”.

Signatories include Robert Winston, the fertility expert, Lord Bragg, the writer and broadcaster and Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council among many others.

Professor Winston told The Times: “The academics in Israel are the very people we should be working with, rather than against, if we want to promote better understanding. I believe this boycott only has the support of a tiny proportion of academics in Britain.”