Greta Thunberg, Tracey Emin and Gary Lineker have signed an open letter backing Misan Harriman after criticism of the photographer and activist over social media posts and remarks about Reform’s election gains. The letter, signed by more than 245 people, says the campaign against him is “entirely without foundation in fact” and warns that smearing critics of Israel as antisemitic does not protect Britain’s Jewish community.
Harriman has chaired the Southbank Centre’s board of governors since 2021, putting him at the centre of a row that now reaches deep into Britain’s cultural and political debates. The open letter also says the aim of the attacks is to marginalise him and send a warning to others who speak out, while signatories including Riz Ahmed, David Oyelowo, Benjamin Moser, Morgan Spector and Jillian Edelstein have added their names to the defence. The dispute is playing out as a test of where legitimate scrutiny ends and a smear campaign begins.
The criticism began after The Telegraph accused Harriman of sharing a social media post that contained a conspiracy about the Golders Green attack and questioned the amount of coverage given to the Muslim victim, Ishmail Hussein. Critics argued the repost risked minimising the antisemitic nature of the attack. David Taylor said the posts were “incredibly inappropriate” for the chair of a charity board and for anyone in the public eye, while Robert Jenrick called Harriman’s post disgusting and said he should be removed from his position at the Southbank Centre. Karen Pollock also challenged Harriman over a video in which he quoted Susan Sontag after Reform’s historic local election results, saying: “How on earth could yesterday’s election results ever be comparable to the Holocaust?”
Harriman’s own response has been defiant. He said: “We have reached the point where truth itself is being crushed by the very institutions that are supposed to uphold it.” He added: “I will never whisper about the oppressed. I stand with truth, I stand by my right to use my voice to help others.” That stance has now drawn support beyond the arts world and into a wider fight over how far cultural figures can go when they criticise Israel or the political right without triggering accusations that their words cross into antisemitism.
The stakes are not just reputational. A campaign to lobby the press regulator Ipso over the coverage has attracted backing from 53,000 people, more than double the number who complained about Jeremy Clarkson’s 2022 column. That scale suggests the dispute has become a proxy battle over press standards, political language and who gets to define the boundaries of acceptable criticism in public life.
