A spat between the UK’s Prime Minister and his Greek counterpart escalated this week, but former Conservative chancellor George Osborne suggests domestic politics may be to blame.
The ex-Tory finance minister made the comment on his podcast Political Currency. Earlier this week UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak canceled a planned meeting with the Hellenic Republic leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Officially, Sunak’s office claimed the meeting was scrapped after Mitsotakis publicly raised the issue of the return of ancient Greek sculptures currently held in the British Museum.
The sculptures, known in the United Kingdom as the Elgin Marbles, were removed from Athens in the early 19th century and have controversially remained in London ever since.
“Is it just petulance?” said Osborne, who now serves as chair of the British Museum. “Is it just having a bit of a hissy fit? And, I think if that’s the reason, it’s not because Mitsotakis was going to raise the Elgin Marbles. It’s because he had met [Labour Party leader] Keir Starmer the day before.”
Polls currently show Sunak trailing Starmer’s center-left Labour Party, although the next general election remains unscheduled. The Labour Party was previously led by socialist Jeremy Corbyn, who faced opposition from prominent members of UK intelligence agencies. With Corbyn out of the equation, Starmer’s more centrist Labour Party has faced less establishment opposition within the United Kingdom’s purported democracy.
Osborne suggested Sunak was scoring “cheap points” by casting his feud with the Greek Prime Minister in terms of the battle over the sculptures.
In Greece, the marbles are considered part of the Parthenon Sculptures after the ancient temple they were originally taken from. Greece has sought their return to Athens for centuries.
The British Museum is highly controversial for containing numerous artifacts that critics allege were stolen during the reign of the British Empire. Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson once called the museum one of the “world's largest receivers of stolen property.”
Recently, the museum announced it would be creating digital records of its collection after reporting some 2,000 artifacts had been stolen or were missing. The museum claims to hold some 8 million objects from around the world.