Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, has backed a campaign to get books by David Irving, a Holocaust denier, removed from open display at Manchester University library.

Williams has written to the university’s vice-chancellor to express concerns that Irving’s books are available “alongside routine historical texts”.



This year, he wrote to the further education minister, Jo Johnson, objecting to the open display of Holocaust-denying material at university libraries. He compared Irving’s works to jihadi material, and suggested it should be clearly labelled and available only on request.



In his letter to Manchester University, Williams – now master of Magdalene College, Cambridge – says: “At a time when there is, nationally and internationally, a measurable rise in the expression of extremist views I believe this question needs urgent attention.”



But on Thursday the university said that it had considered the subject and decided to keep the books on display. It said that the university’s Centre for Jewish Studies had been consulted, and added that most research libraries took the same approach.

“The university is committed to allowing our students to have access to challenging and controversial works on many different subjects in order to pursue their studies,” the statement said. “This approach in no way compromises the university’s fundamental rejection of discrimination which is at the heart of how we seek to educate students and pursue our research activities.”



The former archbishop’s intervention, disclosed by Christian Today, follows demands that universities do more to tackle antisemitism on campus and a rise in the number of reported incidents involving Jewish students and academics. Johnson has urged institutions to deal with “intimidation and violence” against Jewish students.



Last year, Ruth Deech warned that some of Britain’s leading universities were becoming no-go areas for Jews. Naming Manchester, Soas, Southampton and Exeter, Lady Deech told the Telegraph: “Amongst Jewish students there is gradually a feeling that there are certain universities that you should avoid.”



This year, Churchill College, Cambridge, removed a book by Irving from open display after a complaint by Irene Lancaster, a visiting Jewish academic. The college said that Irving’s biography of Winston Churchill would be moved to a “closed access” area and would only be available on request.



Lancaster, who established the subject of Jewish history at Manchester University in 2000, said the Holocaust denier’s works “could be very seductive if you don’t know history” and described him as “manipulative and a liar”.



She said: “My grandmother was murdered in Treblinka, and according to Irving I’m making that up. My concern is about the falsification of history.”



She had discovered a copy of Hitler’s War by Irving on shelves under the label “medieval and modern history” in the university’s John Rylands library. Other books by Irving were also easily accessible.



In the previous few weeks she had written to the university but received no reply. She described the university’s position as a “disgrace”.

Lancaster, who has extensively researched the Holocaust and worked with Israel’s Holocaust centre Yad Vashem, said Greater Manchester was home to the fastest growing observant Jewish community in Europe “and yet time and time again, the university simply acts as if we do not exist”.



Graham Stringer, Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, has also written to the university three times to demand that Irving’s books be removed from open display.



Williams’ letter to the vice-chancellor, Dame Nancy Rothwell, raises “concerns over the shelving of works like those of Irving alongside routine historical texts”.

He writes: “Given that his work has been declared by experts … to be undeserving of the name of history and to be characterised by deliberate falsification of material, it is not a question of alternative interpretations of history or of expressions of simple opinion, but of a very specific genre of literature, quite distinct from history.



“Of course students should be allowed to read it for approved academic purposes, but there is, it seems to me, a strong case for shelving or labelling it independently to clarify its nature. And not doing so could be open to the challenge that its presence without such clarification could be experienced as threatening by Jewish members of the university, in the sense spelled out in official definitions of antisemitism and listed on the website [named] The Law of Antisemitism.”



Irving’s libel case against the author Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books, was the subject of a recent film, called Denial. In April 2000, Charles Gray, a judge, ruled against Irving, leaving him facing costs of £2m.



The judge said: “Irving had for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence … for the same reasons he had portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews.”



He added that Irving was “an active Holocaust denier … an antisemitic and racist and … associated with rightwing extremists who promoted neo-Nazism”.



Referring to Lancaster, Irving’s website recently reported: “The Jewess went on to bitch at Manchester University, who have awarded her a suitably frosty reply … Applause for Jewess Irene Lancaster’s crazed attempts to get Cambridge, Manchester, and other UK universities to block David Irving’s books.”