The Natural History Museum in London has issued an apology for renting its building to the right-wing non-profit National Conservatism, which drew criticism for its extreme views on immigration, religion and climate change, at a gala last month.
National Conservatism members gathered at the museum on May 15 for the event, which was part of the populist political group NatCon’s annual three-day conference. The keynote speaker for the evening was Douglas Murray, a a Britishauthor of books critical of modern attitudes toward race, gender, and faith.
Murray drew backlash for bringing up the Holocaust at the gala. “I don’t see why nobody should be allowed to love their country because the Germans screwed up twice in a century,” he said at the event. National Conservationatism shared this quote on social media wWith a photo of Murray standing under the museum’s iconic Hope the Whale skeleton.
In a blog post released June 1, two weeks after the gala, the museum said it was “horrified and saddened to see hateful rhetoric being expressed” at the private event.
“If we had anticipated some of the rhetoric that was expressed at the event, we would not have allowed it to be held on our site. We should have anticipated this, but due to a genuine error, our usual processes were not followed, and we take full responsibility for that,” the post read.
“It was particularly painful to see an image of Hope the Whale used to illustrate a tweet alongside rhetoric downplaying the horrors of the Holocaust,” he continued. “We did not call out and dismiss these posts as we should have done when they were first published and garnered attention.”
“We want to make it clear that we totally abhor the statements made and we are sorry that they have been shared with museum images.” He said museum workers were discussing how best to use the proceeds from the event.
Representatives for the museum did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
National Conservatism was launched by the Edmund Burke Foundation, a right-wing think tank based in Washington, D.C. The populist-nationalist beliefs of foundation president Yoram Hazony are believed to have heavily informed foreign affairs strategies of former President Donald Trump.
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