This Saturday 27th June 2015 a coalition of LGBTQI rights groups paraded an 'RIP Pride' mock-funeral to confront the corporate sponsors of London LGBT Pride. The apolitical approach to UKIP's presence on the Pride march was sounded as 'the nail in the coffin' which led to the funeral. This compounded anger at Barclay's bank leading the march and the wider corporatization of the London LGBT Pride The official shift from a 'protest' to a 'parade' occurred in 2004, costing £100,000 extra each year to hold and necessitating the kind of commercialization has been repelling many people from turning up each year. Many consider these developments to have killed Pride, which led to the funeral for this year's event.
Anger at the annual parade reached unprecedented levels this year, when news of UKIP's inclusion in queer festivities were originally confirmed. This involved a key position for UKIP at the front of the parade. The queer community outcry for UKIP removal, resulted in Pride organizers disinviting them, citing 'health and safety concerns' rather than recognizing the grievances of those who raised concerns. One of the organisers later went on to call members of the community concerned by the inclusion of the far-right party, 'hypocrites'.
We broke through at a crossing point by Oxford Circus and were immediately met with some resistance from the stewards and private security. With some of the crowd shouting support for our right to peacefully protest for free (as people now have to pay to take part in Pride), we broke through and set off, with drums playing and coffin intact, to have our funeral procession for Pride.
As we got to the end of the RIP Pride procession we saw a group of men holding UKIP placards as one of the first groups marching on the parade, closely following Barclays. RIP Pride mourners were reading a Pride eulogy around their grounded Pride coffin when we spotted UKIP marching near the front. Those in the funeral procession confronted UKIP waving their flags and chanting, and this ultimately lead to UKIP supporters leaving the scene, in the face of growing hostility.
The 'RIP Pride' took place this year because of the corporate focus of Pride in London is seen to be influenced by those involved in running it. The Pride in London Board who are responsible for 'delivery of the Pride event, and its strategic direction' is made up of mainly business bodies, who have little or no connection to the queer community. The Board's Chair, Michael Salter, who was Political Head of Broadcasting at No. 10 Downing Street. It has been stated that he has a passion for LGBT+ issues, but is seen as contradictory with his role within a Tory-led coalition that is implementing spending cuts that hit women, children, the disabled, BME and LGBTQIA communities the hardest.
By turning Pride back into a protest with our funeral procession and our chasing UKIP off the parade that made it a resounding success in my opinion, and hopefully next year, who knows, there might be a bigger movement of people who want to take Pride back to its grassroots.
We organized this to remember what Pride started as, and its radical legacy. We also were there to protest against what it has become. It was a powerful moment to share our collective grief over the soulless corporate character of 'Pride in London', which has nothing to say about LGBTQI issues today such as 1 in 4 homeless people in the UK being from our community, the people seeing services upon which they depend cut as part of the austerity agenda, or the loss of queer spaces in London to property developers serving an international elite. To invite a party like UKIP which attacks migrants, people living with HIV, homosexuals, and any other vulnerable minority as it suits them, was the final nail in the coffin - which we grieved for very loudly and very proudly.
It was so great to see Pride return to it's roots as a protest rather than just a parade. Pride should have strong political principles with equality for everyone at it's heart not just big business or any organization who wishes to milk the LGBTQI community dry. Our demand is that the organization of Pride becomes democratic: decision-making power should be taken away from the current unrepresentative, largely corporate Board and an LGBTQIA assembly should be established, to decide the theme and direction for Pride in 2016 and onwards