‘Internal investigation’ into anti-Israel Southbank centre chair’s social media posts

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has contacted both the charity commission and the Arts Council regarding “urgent investigations” into the social media activity of the chair of the South Bank centre, who is notorious for his anti-Israel activism.

As reported by The Times, Lisa Nandy has written to Labour Peer Lord Mendelssohn, confirming confirmed that “the Southbank Centre is currently conducting an internal investigation using its established internal process for handling complaints and allegations against staff, including governors.

“They have also referred themselves to the Charity Commission, with a response due to them on the internal investigation by mid-June. Additionally, the Charity Commission is assessing concerns raised in the media and will report shortly on what further action they intend to take.

“The Arts Council is also looking into a number of complaints that have been made to them directly. As you know, the Arts Council has the power to suspend, withdraw or claw back grant funding if the organisation is in breach of the terms of their grant agreement.”

Harriman, the son of a Nigerian billionaire who made his name as a photographer during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, regularly attends anti-Israel marches in London, photographing what he refers to as “observations” by members of the crowd. These have included signs exhibiting Holocaust inversion – people likening the actions of the Nazis against Jews with that of Israelis against Palestinians, as well as examples of people making the triangle insignia – which has become widely associated with Hamas support – with their hands.

In May Harriman was accused of comparing Reform UK’s rise to that of the Nazis. In a video in the wake of the local elections, when Reform UK won more than 1,450 council seats, Harriman said that the “first thing that came to mind” was Susan Sontag’s reflection on pre-war Germany. “She said when thinking about the Holocaust, 10 per cent of people in any population are cruel no matter what, and 10 per cent is merciful no matter what and the other — this is important — the other remaining 80 per cent could be moved in either direction,” he said.

Later in the video, however, Harriman noted a specific incident, where a Reform UK candidate had been found to have complained about “the amount of Nigerians in town” and suggested “should melt them all down and fill in the pot holes!!”

When asked about it on national television, Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice did not directly condemn the individual responsible, saying “Like any party, we have internal party processes to look where people have said or done the wrong thing. I condemn everything that is wrong and inappropriate. Voters have heard all of this smearing and this sneering against all of us, and they have voted for more Reform.” Reform later suspended the individual in question.

Supporters of Harriman subsequently accused those criticising Harriman for making a Holocaust comparison in his video of taking his words out of context.

In an interview for Dazed magazine published in January, Harriman said that “We cannot stop until we see the full liberation of Palestine”, describing Israel as “maintaining one of the most advanced systems of racialised violence the world has ever witnessed…a system fundamentally rooted in white supremacy”. Later in the interview, Harriman said: “The demon at the top of what is going on in Palestine is the same one fuelling the hellscapes in Sudan, Congo, Haiti, and Yemen. It is the same patriarchal, hyper-violent, capitalist, neocolonial framework that forces us to fight for collective liberation around the world… When you see photographs of the Grenfell protests beside those of Palestine, you begin to understand that it is the same greed…the same folly of man, that allowed people to burn alive in central London while children are being sniped by grown men in Gaza.”

In the same interview, Harriman said that “in 2020, when my BLM photographs were first published, they happened to align neatly with the prevailing narrative. My Palestine protest photos, on the other hand, do not operate within the same landscape of performance – or, more precisely, they do not serve Western interests. No major outlet would dare show such emotional or humanising depictions of a movement directly challenging the underlying structures of Western imperialism. Palestine is the one issue that makes everyone malfunction.”

As reported by The Times, The Arts Council said: “We look carefully at all concerns that are raised with us. We are not a regulatory body, and we can’t make, interpret or enforce the law, but we can ensure that the organisations we fund have the relevant policies and processes in place, and that they follow them.”

The Charity Commission said: “We have opened a regulatory compliance case to continue assessing concerns raised in the media about comments made by the chair of Southbank Centre. As part of this, we are engaging with the charity’s trustees to gather more information.”