BRITAIN’S leading universities threatened yesterday to break ties with the National Union of Students (NUS), saying the election of its new Muslim president would send “a horrifying message” to Jewish students.

Students at Cambridge and Oxford announced on Thursday evening they would be holding referenda on whether their union branches should be affiliated to the NUS.

The attack came in response to Malia Bouattia’s presidential victory at this year’s NUS conference, where she became the 94-year-old body’s first black Muslim leader.