The Greek government has been assured by Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour party, that in the event of electoral victory next year he will not block a prospective arrangement to return the Parthenon marbles to Athens.
Speaking through aides before talks in London with the Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Starmer gave his strongest hint yet of his support for a loan deal that would see the antiquities return to the country where they were carved 2,500 years ago.
“If a loan deal that is mutually acceptable to the British government and the Greek government will be agreed, we won’t stand in the way,” one of the Labour leader’s close allies was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.
As the UK prepares to gear up for a general election, the intervention highlights the significance the cultural row has assumed at a time when disputed treasures are being repatriated globally to their countries of origin.
The proposed deal, which is under discussion in secret talks between Greek officials and George Osborne, the chair of the British Museum, would allow the sculptures to return to Athens in exchange for a merry-go-round of Greek treasures being displayed in London.
Many of these art works are in storage in museum vaults and have never before been seen.
Greek sources acknowledged the Labour leader was “favourably disposed” to a significant part of the antiquities being displayed at the Acropolis Museum within view of the fifth-century BC Parthenon temple they once adorned.
But while they revealed Mitsotakis would raise the issue when he met Starmer in London on Monday and Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, in Downing Street on Tuesday – as part of an accelerated campaign to reunite the pieces – officials also cautioned against over-expectation.
One insider told the Guardian: “Yes, behind-the-scene talks [around a deal] are happening but we’re talking about quiet diplomacy because it is so sensitive.”
Starmer, he said, would not want to broach the subject publicly for fear of the backlash that would come with the inevitable rhetoric of Labour “losing its marbles” in the run-up to polling day.
“It partly explains why Starmer has also emphasised his opposition to any change to the 1963 deaccession act which prevents the museum from returning the marbles,” added another well-placed source in Athens.
“What ultimately divides the UK and Greece on the matter is ownership of the artefacts. Our government will never accept a ‘loan’ of treasures it believes were stolen in the early 19th-century by [Lord] Elgin, while the British Museum argues it is prohibited by law from relinquishing legitimate ownership of artworks in its collection.”
But Labour has put out feelers to Athens. Last week, the leading Greek daily Ta Nea, also quoting Labour party insiders, said Starmer was open to finding “a legal formula” that would allow the antiquities to be seen in the Greek capital.
Starmer is not the first Labour leader to back restitution. His predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, also believed the marbles should be repatriated if his party won office, while Neil Kinnock famously declared almost four decades ago that “the Parthenon without the marbles is like a smile with a missing tooth”.
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Removed in circumstances that remain controversial at the behest of Elgin, the antiquities were shipped to London in crates between 1801 and 1804 before being sold to the British Museum in 1816.
Even at the time the marbles’ removal from the monument was decried as an act of vandalism by Lord Byron.
The row erupted again when the actor-turned-politician Melina Mercouri made Athens’ first formal request to reclaim the sculptures in 1983. The film star made the case for repatriation saying the carvings were “an integral part of a monument that represents the national spirit of Greece”.
Almost half the original 160-metre-long original frieze is housed in the British Museum.
The dispute has caused growing embarrassment in the UK where polls have shown the vast majority of Britons support the marbles’ return.
Forty years on, Osborne has spoken increasingly of the desire to forge a partnership with Greece that would allow the sculptures to “spend part of their time in Athens”.
Addressing the annual trustees dinner in the British Museum’s Duveen Gallery, where the sculptures are exhibited earlier this month, Osborne said: “As trustees we look for a partnership with our Greek friends that requires no one to relinquish their claims, asks for no changes to laws which are not ours to write, but which funds a practical, pragmatic and rational way forward.
“We may not succeed. But we think it’s worth trying.”