Natural History Museum ‘sorry’ for National Conservatism event

The Natural History Museum has issued an apology for allowing a rightwing thinktank to hold a private dinner in its main hall, saying it was "horrified and saddened" to see hateful rhetoric being expressed at the event.

A three-day National Conservatism conference was held at Emmanuel Centre in Westminster, London, between 14 and 16 May, with a private dinner event at the Natural History Museum taking place on the end of the first day.

The museum initially responded to concerns by releasing a statement saying that it hires out rooms for private events, and that no museum and that no staff attended. But it has now published a full apology on its website.

"Had we anticipated some of the rhetoric that was expressed at the event, we would not have permitted it to be held on our site," the statement said.

"We should have anticipated this, but because of a genuine mistake our usual processes were not followed, and we take full responsibility for this. 

"We’re taking immediate action to fix the mistakes that led to this, and we are consulting colleagues on the best way to use the proceeds from this hire of our venue."

The museum said it was "particularly painful" to see an image of Hope the Whale used to illustrate a tweet alongside rhetoric that minimised the horrors of the Holocaust.

"We didn’t call out and reject these posts as we should have done when they were first published and gathering attention. We want to apologise and unreservedly reject any association of these messages with the museum.

"We want to make clear that we utterly abhor the statements made and we are sorry they were shared with imagery of the museum."