PM backed return of Elgin Marbles in 1986 letters

BORIS JOHNSON argued for the return of the Elgin Marbles in a letter to a senior Greek government minister while studying at Oxford, it has emerged.

The Prime Minister last year issued a point-blank rejection of any attempt to return the ancient marbles to Greece, insisting they would remain in Britain because they had been legally acquired.

But two letters have now emerged in which he argued passionately for the return of what are known in Greece as the Parthenon Marbles, and accused Elgin of “wholesale pillage” in removing them to Britain.

In the previously unpublished letters, written in 1986 when Mr Johnson was a 21-year-old undergraduate at Oxford and president of the Oxford Union, he argues for the ancient sculptures’ “immediate” repatriation.

He went as far as claiming that the British Government’s policy on the Marbles was “unacceptable to cultured people”, and lamented the “scandalous” way it was handling the issue.

The letters, revealed by the Greek newspaper Ta Nea, were written to the late actor Melina Mercouri, who was Greece’s minister for culture. In them, Mr Johnson cited a letter he claimed proved Elgin removed the sculptures from the Parthenon in the early 19th century without legal permission.

In November 2021, Mr Johnson rebuffed a direct request by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister of Greece, for the Marbles to be returned.

He stated: “The UK Government has a firm longstanding position on the sculptures, which is they were legally acquired by Lord Elgin … and have been legally owned by the British Museum’s trustees since.”

But in 1986, he told Ms Mercouri the Turkish authorities denied “that the persons who had sold those marbles to [Elgin] had any right to dispose of them”.

The letters were found in an Oxford library and their authenticity has been confirmed by an Oxford source and someone who served as a Greek state official at the time, according to Ta Nea.

A Government spokesman said: “The Parthenon Sculptures were acquired legally in accordance with the law at the time. The British Museum operates independently of the government and free from political interference. All decisions relating to collections are taken by the Museum’s trustees.”