Pride in London looking into major shake-ups, such as banning fossil fuel companies and moving the parade
A general view a flag bearer jumping on the giant Pride flag during Pride in London 2019 on July 06, 2019 in London, England. (Tristan Fewings/Getty for Pride in London)
Pride in London is consulting on whether to ban LGBT+ groups from arms manufacturers and fossil fuel companies from the parade, whether to ban vehicles to cut down on emissions, and whether to relocate the parade out of the city centre.
A wide-ranging consultation was launched by Pride in London on Wednesday into the future of the festival, that acknowledges key demands of climate protesters and left-wing LGBT+ activists.
Pride in London could ban LGBT+ employees of arms manufacturers and fossil fuel companies.
Pride-goers are being consulted on whether to ban LGBT+ networks from “arms manufacturers”, “fossil fuel companies” and “companies who profit from ecocide” from taking part in the parade.
Other measures under consideration include a ban on “all motorised vehicles in the parade”, a ban on single-use plastic bottles, and a mandatory “carbon off-setting levy” that corporate parade groups would be required to pay.
The measures come after Pride in London agreed to demands from climate activist group Extinction Rebellion, committing to go carbon neutral by 2020 and “recognise problematic nature of the ecocidal profiteering of some of the groups in the parade”.
Parade could be moved out of central London to reduce overcrowding.
Pride in London also acknowledged long-standing issues that has seen community groups turned away from the over-subscribed event, which saw 50,000 applications to march in the 2019 parade, of which 30,000 were granted.
A view of the crowd at the Pride in London main stage at Trafalgar Square (Mike Marsland/Getty)
Options under consideration include moving parts of the festival out of the crowded London city centre, asking Pride-goers for their views on whether the event should “move out of the centre of London” if it meant “the parade could include more people.”
People are also being consulted on whether Pride should “allocate places to community groups and LGBTQ+ organisations/businesses first, with any remaining places going to LGBTQ+ employer networks, charities, NGOs and others”.
Other options to cut down on numbers include introducing a ballot system to allocate wristbands, or a hard limit “of 50 wristbands per application”.
Pride in London explained: “Since Pride in London took over running the city’s pride celebrations, the event has more than doubled in size.
“In the past two years, the parade has been heavily over-subscribed, so we have decided to launch a consultation amongst the community, our stakeholders and supporters, to consider options for the future, taking into account the operational constraints we face in order that London’s transport infrastructure and businesses are not unreasonably impacted by the event.
“This survey is a key part of the consultation and we are inviting responses from across the LGBTQ+ community to help us think about how we best manage this going forwards.”
