The UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has backtracked on sending the Parthenon Marbles to Greece regardless of beforehand calling for the artefacts to be returned completely to their nation of origin.
Burnham, who turned prime minister in July, not too long ago advised The Monetary Occasions: “In the end [returning the Marbles is] a problem for the British Museum, isn’t it?” He added: “Legally that’s the place that challenge rests, however I’m all in favour of utilizing British cultural diplomacy. That’s one thing that I’m massively in favour of.”
Burnham had beforehand said although that he helps returning the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, a place presumably signalling a extra open strategy to restitution underneath his premiership.
In the course of the reopening of the Manchester Museum in February 2023, Burnham, then the mayor of better Manchester, was requested if George Osborne, the chair of the British Museum, ought to give the sculptures again. He replied: “Sure, George Osborne ought to give the Elgin Marbles again.” That very same month, Burnham reiterated the place on X: “Ship [the Marbles] again, no strings. And let’s use tradition to vary how Britain is seen around the globe.”
Following Burnham’s appointment as prime minister, The Artwork Newspaper contacted the Division of Digital, Media, Tradition and Sport (DCMS) about whether or not Burnham stood by his remarks. The division responded: “Selections regarding the care and administration of the museum’s collections, together with loaning objects, are a matter for the trustees of the British Museum.”
The British Museum says it’s prevented from returning the marbles by a bit of laws, the British Museum Act 1963. In 2002, Burnham was one in all seven members of parliament to introduce a personal member’s invoice entitled the Museums Invoice which, in response to the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, proposed amending the 1963 act. The invoice was finally dropped.
The left hand group of surviving figures from the East Pediment of the Parthenon, held within the assortment of the British Museum Picture: © Andrew Dunn
The marbles have been housed within the British Museum since 1817, arriving there after being faraway from the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis in Athens by the Scottish nobleman Lord Elgin, the then ambassador to the Ottoman court docket. In 2022, George Osborne mentioned there’s a “deal to be executed” over sharing the Parthenon Marbles with Greece, which has lengthy claimed possession of the antiquities.
In one other key improvement, the British Museum’s director Nicholas Cullinan advised The Monetary Occasionsthat the deal that introduced the Bayeux Tapestry to the UK would possibly pave the best way for a mortgage of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. The long-awaited show of the Bayeux Tapestry, an embroidery depicting the 1066 Norman invasion and the Battle of Hastings, will open within the museum’s Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery on 10 September (till 11 July 2027).
“Each instance of a relationship or cultural historical past is totally different, so there isn’t a cookie-cutter template,” Cullinan mentioned. “That mentioned, you’d hope the truth that it took a number of goes to tug off the Bayeux Tapestry mortgage would possibly present a glimmer of risk to maneuver ahead [on the Marbles]… I’d hope that some tangible progress can occur. It could be a beautiful factor.” He additionally warned of “unintended penalties” if the British Museum Act 1963 had been amended.
The settlement between France and Britain for the mortgage of the Bayeux Tapestry was finalised and signed in July 2025 on the British Museum in a particular ceremony attended by the then UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron of France.
Macron mentioned on the occasion that France has traditionally been reluctant to mortgage the Tapestry. “[For] many years I’ve to admit, we did our greatest to not be put on this state of affairs to make the mortgage of the Bayeux Tapestry,” he mentioned.
