Lord Boateng: British Museum offers loans where Ghana seeks return of Asante gold

Speaking at a Chatham House event on October 15, Lord Paul Yaw Boateng called the British Museum the "largest depository of stolen goods known to man" and said it had talked about reparative justice without delivering it. The Labour peer and former civil rights lawyer urged allies and the public to pressure the museum's trustees toward full returns — naming the Ethiopian Tabots, the Benin Bronzes and Asante gold.

The Asante case is the most concrete. The museum holds more than 200 Asante gold objects and other items taken by British troops, including artefacts taken from the Asante palace in Kumasi during the 1874 war. The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has met the museum's director about possible returns. The museum's stated response has been to explore lending items to Ghana to mark the 150th anniversary of the end of the third Anglo-Asante war and the Asantehene's Silver Jubilee.

That gap — between restitution language and a loan offer — is what Boateng's remarks target. It is not a new grievance. In 1974, the Asantehene petitioned British authorities, with Ghana government support, for the return of regalia looted from Kumasi in 1874, 1896 and 1900 and held in the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Wallace Collection and elsewhere. Fifty-two years later, the discussion is still framed around loans and anniversaries.

The pressure is wider than one collection. A Guardian investigation reported in March found that UK museums hold more than 263,000 items of human remains, over 37,000 known to originate overseas, prompting MPs and archaeologists to call the legacy shameful and growing calls for new guidance. The British Museum has also faced recent thefts, which commentators cite in questioning whether it can be trusted with cultural treasures.

What remains unknown is whether the trustees will commit to permanent returns or continue exploring loans, and how the UK government will respond to calls to press them. Boateng's intervention reframes the question as a test of whether the museum's reparative-justice talk is matched by action. On the evidence so far, the answer is a loan offer and an anniversary.