{"id":656205,"date":"2026-06-24T19:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T19:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/656205\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T19:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T19:22:12","slug":"misan-harriman-to-step-down-as-chair-of-southbank-centre-southbank-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/656205\/","title":{"rendered":"Misan Harriman to step down as chair of Southbank Centre | Southbank Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Misan Harriman will not seek another term as chair of the Southbank Centre and is to step down in autumn after a month of intense pressure caused by accusations he shared a conspiracy theory<\/a> about the Golders Green attack.<\/p>\n

Harriman, who has held the position since 2021<\/a>, confirmed in a social media post that he would not continue as chair beyond autumn.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt\u2019s semi-public knowledge that my term is coming to an end anyway \u2026 I had decided way before this madness that I was going to do two terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a long time to find whoever the next chair will be, and that process will begin at some point, and I\u2019ll update you more on exact dates and timelines probably in autumn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harriman praised the centre\u2019s board and highlighted Harry Styles\u2019 Meltdown festival, Anish Kapoor\u2019s new show at the Hayward and the upcoming Nan Goldin show as evidence of an institution in fine health.<\/p>\n

He called the Southbank Centre<\/a>, which is celebrating its 75th year in 2026, \u201ca sacred 11 acres\u201d and said he was \u201cstill very proud to be chair\u201d.<\/p>\n

His departure comes after a month of intense scrutiny and criticism of his social media activity, although the Southbank confirmed Harriman had made the decision to depart in January.<\/p>\n

Harriman has more than 500,000 followers on Instagram after rising to prominence as a photographer of Black Lives Matter protests<\/a>. In May, he was accused by the Telegraph of sharing a social media post that contained a conspiracy theory about the Golders Green attack because it questioned the amount of coverage given to the Muslim victim, Ishmail Hussein.<\/p>\n

Critics of Harriman said the repost risked minimising the antisemitic nature of the attack, with newspaper editorials calling for him to resign as chair of the Southbank.<\/p>\n

He was also criticised after England\u2019s local election results, for making comments about Reform voters. One headline read: \u201cSouthbank Centre chief \u2018compares Reform victory to Holocaust\u2019<\/a>\u201d, after Harriman quoted Susan Sontag in a video giving his thoughts after Reform\u2019s gains.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cShe said when thinking about the Holocaust, 10% of people in any population are cruel no matter what, and 10% is merciful no matter what and the other \u2013 this is important \u2013 the other remaining 80% could be moved in either direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a profound way to look at us. In the context of yesterday\u2019s election result, it is something which I think is really topical.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Times editorial called his online comments \u201ccrass\u201d and \u201cdistasteful in the extreme\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Harriman is the head of a high-profile body in receipt of public funds. That position inevitably amplifies his private views,\u201d it wrote. \u201cHis remarks risk damaging the reputation of the Southbank Centre and driving away sponsors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greta Thunberg, Tracey Emin and Gary Lineker were among those to sign an open letter in support of Harriman, after what they said was a \u201cdishonest smear campaign<\/a>\u201d by media outlets.<\/p>\n

The culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, received letters from parliamentarians condemning Harriman and also supporting him, with a letter signed by peers and MPs saying there was a \u201csmear campaign\u201d against Harriman \u201cseemingly aimed at whipping up a furore to engineer an ever-growing environment of cancel culture\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Southbank chair lodged an official complaint with Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), the press watchdog, about the coverage, which included pieces by the Times, the Telegraph and GB News.<\/p>\n

An online campaign of support for Harriman garnered more than 100,000 signatures.<\/p>\n

Harriman did not address the accusations made against him in the video other than referring to \u201cthis madness\u201d, and a spokesperson for the Southbank Centre told the Guardian his departure had nothing to do with the recent \u201cantisemitism\u201d row.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said: \u201cMisan confirmed with the deputy chair in January that he would not be seeking a third term and would step down in the autumn of 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuccession planning is already underway, with further details to be confirmed following our AGM in July.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Misan Harriman will not seek another term as chair of the Southbank Centre and is to step down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-656205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}