Adam Habib of Soas: ‘UK universities must stop taking other countries’ best people’.

Adam Habib, director of Soas University of London, says he misjudged ‘how fractious the UK is around issues of race and identity’. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

When outspoken South African professor Adam Habib took over last year as director of Soas University of London, an elite research university next to the British Museum in central London, it seemed like a poisoned chalice.