Should we refuse to give the Bayeux tapestry back to France? Of course not! So why are we keeping the Parthenon marbles? | Simon Jenkins

For the Bayeux tapestry to return to France would be a scandal. It is British, probably made in Canterbury by British women, and displays one of the greatest events in British history. The tapestry certainly does not belong in Normandy. It is right that it is now on British soil in the British Museum. Its display is so brief that the herd of visitors desperate to catch a glimpse of the medieval artwork must be jostled to keep moving, as if watching Shakespeare’s Henry V on fast-forward. So let’s keep it. Everybody knows possession is nine-tenths of the law. We can call it a long-term loan.

I am joking, of course. This is largely what I assume the British Museum is worried might happen if it lent the precious Elgin, or Parthenon, marbles to Athens. In the Guardian last month, the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, argued that the status of the Bayeux tapestry is parallel to that of the Parthenon marbles. “Both were conceived as single works, intended to be seen and understood as a whole,” he wrote, arguing it was time for the marbles to be reunited.

The British Museum director, Nicholas Cullinan, even appeared to agree. He remarked that the Bayeux tapestry loan offered a “glimmer of possibility” of a deal on the Parthenon marbles, which were acquired by the British Museum in 1816.

Cullinan’s predecessors have long come across as jingoistic hoarders, as if the museum were a lasting memorial to the British empire. In the 1980s, the then director, Sir David Wilson, had an infamous clash with Greece’s then culture minister, Melina Mercouri, who had travelled to London to appeal for the sculptures return. “I want my marbles back,” she demanded to Wilson in front of TV cameras.

The debate has since swirled back and forth. But it is as unedifying as watching grownups argue over a bag of sweets. Insofar as the public cares, a majority of Britons think the marbles should go back to Greece.

There was a refreshing breakthrough in 2022 after George Osborne became the museum’s chair and boldly opened negotiations with Athens. He even held a public debate on the matter. The objective was certainly confused. Was it a discreet exchange of some classical artefacts, or was it to be the final reuniting of the Parthenon pediments in the new Athens museum? The latter clearly made sense, both artistically and because of the significance of the Parthenon to Greek national identity.

Since then, the prospect of a possible return of the marbles has been bedevilled by politics and diplomacy. The Greek government rejects any arrangement that would require it to recognise the British Museum’s “ownership”. But such de-acquisitioning would only be possible if the law were changed. Boris Johnson, once an ardent supporter of the marbles’ return, reversed his position when in office. For his part, Rishi Sunak refused to change the law and clearly wanted the marbles to stay in Britain.

Cut to Andy Burnham, who we may have expected to adopt a different stance. During his brief stint as culture secretary between 2008 and 2009, Burnham was reportedly a champion of the marbles’ return. In 2002, he even sponsored a private member’s bill on facilitating their transfer back to Greece. His advocacy is longstanding. As recently as 2023, Burnham, then mayor of Greater Manchester, declared: “Send them back, no strings attached. And let’s use culture to change how Britain is seen around the world.”

But Burnham has done a Johnson and Sunak and let it be known he has reversed his position. Elgin’s ghost seems to spook the Downing Street rafters.

The bottom line is there is no agreement on the nature of what a loan could look like. And to make matters worse, the British Museum is lending two minor Parthenon fragments to an exhibition of Greek sculpture opening in November in Frankfurt’s Liebieghaus museum. This has so infuriated Athens that it has reportedly refused to lend nine fragments of the Parthenon marbles to the exhibition, as if proximity to the British ones would be contaminating. Talks are reportedly back to stalemate. This is desperately sad. I have followed this debate since first visiting the Parthenon with its then surveyor in the 1970s. The temple and its carvings must rank among the founding compositions of western culture.

Bringing their sculptural integrity back to life and on the site of its creation should so clearly be the ambition of every historian and archaeologist worth their salt. For museum leaders to go about hoarding, empire-building, nit-picking and point-scoring is frankly pathetic. Modern national museums are outrageous in how they amass collections and then sometimes prevent others from seeing them.

When I was chair of the National Trust, we tried to persuade the Tate Gallery and others to lend us paintings from their basements that never saw the light of day. The answer was almost always: “No, they are ours, not yours!” We thought they belonged to the public.

As for leaders such as Johnson and Burnham, they demand a course of action in opposition yet lack the guts to do it in power. This has gone on long enough. Greece should drop its obsession with formal “ownership”. London should dispatch its 17 pediment sculptures on indefinite loan to Athens. Then, together, all of Europe can rejoice.