In a damning online critique of the British Museum, the prominent Egyptian-born writer Ahdaf Soueif has announced that she has resigned as a trustee member. Writing in the London Review of Books (LRB) blog about her decision, Soueif says that it was in protest of the British Museum’s “immovability on issues of critical concern”, highlighting its British Petroleum (BP) sponsorship, treatment of workers, and lack of discussion over the issue of restitution in particular. According to the British Museum’s chairman of the board of trustees Richard Lambert, Soueif only announced her decision 20 minutes before a trustee meeting on 4 July.

“The world is caught up in battles over climate change, vicious and widening inequality, the residual heritage of colonialism, questions of democracy, citizenship and human rights,” she writes. “On all these issues the museum needs to take a clear ethical position.”

Soueif says that she first raised the issue of BP’s sponsorship deal with the board in 2016. “It was an education for me how little it seems to trouble anyone—even now, with environmental activists bringing ever bigger and more creative protests into the museum,” she writes. Her criticism comes just a week after the British Museum announced that it had endorsed further sponsorship from the oil company next year for the major exhibition Troy, Myth and Reality (21 November-8 March 2020).