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Anti-Racist & Migrant Rights reclaim Pride – 2017

Anti-Racist & Migrant Rights reclaim Pride: On Saturday 8th July 2017 Pride stewards stopped the Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc from joining the Pride procession in London.

Instead the Bloc reclaimed Pride as protest, gate-crashing the route at Oxford Circus and marching in front of the official parade along the route lined by cheering crowds.

Pride had changed drastically over the years since I first photographed it in the 1990s and had “degenerated from the original protest into a corporate glitterfest led by major corporations which use it as ‘pinkwashing’ to enhance their reputation.” It now “includes groups such as the Home Office, arms companies and police whose activities harm gay people in the UK and across the world.”

This year, 2025, there are reports that much of the corporate money behind these changes has dried up as companies and major organisations are finding times harder, and Prides in towns and cities are feeling the pinch, with at least one having had to cancel this year’s event.

In 2017 the organisers had decided to “strictly limit those who could take part in the procession, with only those who had applied to take part officially and been granted permission being issued with armbands allowing their members to go on the route.”

Until 2017, the event had been open to “open to anyone who wished to take part, who could join on towards the end of the parade as the Migrant Rights and Anti-Racist bloc did” in 2016.

I’d met the Bloc as it gathered on Oxford Street and walked with them as they made their way to Oxford Circus where they had hoped to walk up Regent Street towards the back of the procession. Stewards and police tried to stop them as they marched through a gap between police vans and lifted barriers to make their way into Oxford Circus but failed.

They were now just ahead of the official head of the procession but the stewards were adamant that they could not walk up Regent Street towards the rear where they wished to join it, and with the help of police were able to prevent them.

The Anti-Racist & Migrant Pride bloc were refused entry to the official march but were on the road in front of it and were not going to move out of the way.

Some minutes of threats of arrest and negotiations followed, but the Bloc stayed on the road preventing the Pride parade from starting. Eventually police decided to let the bloc march along the route in front of the main march – which otherwise was unable to move.

They got a lot of cheers from the waiting crowds – and some puzzlement – but a lot of people took photographs as they went past, and a few managed to come and join them.

They let off smoke flares as they went down Regent St, in the lead the 2017 Pride march in London, and as I walked with them I was able to photograph many of the people cheering them on.

They marched to the end of the route in Whitehall, where most then left the road, but a group of No Pride in War protesters lay down on the road. By now the head of the official parade had reached Trafalgar Square, but had to stop there and wait while police slowly tried to get them to move.

After around 15 minutes the people lying “on the floor got up after police threatened them with arrest if they stayed.“

“They had made a very effective protest and had reclaimed Pride as protest. But somehow all of the mainstream media covering the event managed to avoid seeing several hundred people leading the protest and setting off flares.” Our mass media operate a very effective censorship on behalf of the establishment.

It was hard to choose just a few pictures from the event for this post – there are so many more on My London Diary as well as more about the event – from which the quotes above come – at Anti-Racist & Migrant Rights reclaim Pride.

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Pride in 2002

Pride in 2002: Back in 2002 Pride was still in black and white, or at least the pictures I posted on My London Diary were, as were those I took to the picture library I was then working with. They still only worked with black and white prints and colour transparencies and I was working with colour negative.

It would have been possible for me to convert those colour negatives into transparencies, but it wasn’t worth the time and expense in the hope of possible sales to do so.

For my personal use and to exhibit work I could make colour prints – and I had crammed a colour processor into my darkroom so could feed the exposed Fuji paper in at one end, shut the lid and let the machine do the rest before I took the print to the print washer.

I had a smart colour enlarger with a linked probe that at least almost got the necessary filtration somewhere close, though I always ran at least one test strip – and often 2 or 3 – before making the final print. Making prints was a rather tedious business working in near total darkness with just a very, very dim sodium light.

The way forward was obviously to scan negative film to provide digital files, but in 2002 the equipment I had was fairly primitive and the scans I produced in 2002 looked rather poor, which is probably why I only posted the black and white images on My London Diary at the time. Scanning the black and white 10×8″ press prints gave rather better results.

Back then I only wrote two short paragraphs about the event in My London Diary – and here they are in full (with the usual corrections):

July started for me with the annual Pride march. This year it was probably the smallest I’ve attended, and was a rather sad event compared to previous years.

It was enlivened a little by some visitors from Brazil, but the whole thing seems to be more of a commercial event now. Much less fun and joy.

For this post I’ve revisited some of those 2002 scans and improved them significantly with the aid of some smart sharpening and other minor adjustments to post here. You can click on these colour images to see them larger.

Most of the colour images are of the same subjects as I took in black and white, and at least for some I still prefer them in black and white. But generally I think the event is best seen in colour.

More black and white pictures start here on My London Diary.

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Pride, Paedos & Class War – 2015

Pride, Paedos & Class War: Saturday 27th June 2015 I photographed the London Pride Parade and a protest at it by Class War, as well as a protest at Downing Street against paedophiles in high positions and the activities of the family courts. Of course we now know that the main witness behind the Met’s Operation Midland was a “liar, fraudster and paedophile” who was later sentenced to “to 18 years in prison, having been found guilty of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice, one of fraud, and several child sexual offences.” Even back in 2015 it was hard to understand why the Met police took his fantastic allegations so seriously.

Pride Parade – Baker Street

I photographed people getting ready for the parade in Baker Street, and had a particular interest in Pride 2015 as this was the 30th anniversary of the support that Pride had then given to the Miners Strike.

Because of this there was more interest in the event by trade unions and political groups giving the event a more radical nature than the commercial festival it has now become.

But Pride 2015 was still “dominated by large commercial groups, who also provide large amounts of sponsorship to enable the event as a whole to be dominated by commercial interests. It seems a long way from the event when I first photographed it in the early 90s when Pride was a protest.”

Of course there are still things apart from the large corporate groups and it was these and the more political aspects that I was interested in photographing as you can see from the many pictures on My London Diary.

And as usual, Peter Tatchell was still there with supporters to uphold the radical past of the event, this time marching with posters against the Northern Ireland same-sex marriage ban and the homophobis of the Democratic Unionist Party.

Much more on My London Diary at Pride Parade.

Class War protest ‘corporate pinkwashing’ – Piccadilly Circus and Pall Mall

Class War had come to Piccadilly Circus with a new banner, ‘POOR IS THE NEW QUEER‘
against the corporate sponsorship and takeover of Pride in London. Below was the message ‘F**k the Pink Pound, F**k Corporate Pinkwashing!’ and half a dozen of them held it up in front of Barclay’s at Piccadilly Circus.

Before that some of them, suitably attired, had posed for photos on the street, and then posed and danced with some of those who had come to watch the parade.

They then moved down to Pall Mall where they found a spot where the crowd waiting for the parade was much thinner and leaned on the barriers until the front of the parade had almost reached them. They lifted up the barriers and took to the street walking a few yards in front of it with their bannner for around 50 yards. A smoke flare drew attention to their protest, while Pride stewards and police tried to get them to leave and they were forced back behind the barriers.

The stood behind the barriers holding the banner as the front of the parade moved past, watched closely by police, but then saw a larger group of police approaching and decided “it was time to disappear, running towards Trafalgar Square. I followed half of them down into the subway where they lost the police, emerging from one of the other subway entrances. Most if not all had evaded the police and were meeting up to decide on any further action, but I’d followed them enough and left.”

More at Class War protest ‘corporate pinkwashing’.

Victims & Survivors call for Justice – Downing St,

An angry rally opposite Downing St called for an end to the covering up of paedophilia, particularly the 76 allegations against MPs, as well as others in high positions protected by the establishment whose investigation has been shelved.

Although few outside of the Met Police believed the claims made by “Nick” about MPs, even the wildest allegations may have some truth behind them, and after the rumours and allegations against Jimmy Saville were dismissed for so many years by the establishment it is difficult to dismiss everything as wild rumours and conspiracy theories.

Some had come to protest about the secret activities of the family courts, often taking children away from loving parents and in some cases returning them an abusive parent. Some judges were accused of confusing poverty with abuse. Gagging orders prevent many of the facts becoming known. Problems over transparency in these courts have now become officially recognised and there have been pilot schemes to improve this without harming the children involved.

Victims & Survivors call for Justice

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Rain on Pride Parade

Rain on Pride Parade: Times have changed since 2014 when I made a large set of pictures at the start of London’s annual Gay Pride on Saturday 28 June. Back in 2014 I was able to walk around freely and meet and photograph those taking part before the parade started. The colour pictures here are all from that event, where there were some short but heavy showers as people gathered.

I don’t think I had actually bothered to apply for accreditation, though I did on some previous years, as I didn’t intend to photograph the actual parade. But in 2017 security around the event was stepped up and it became necessary for everyone to have applied for permission to take part to get near.

I’d first photographed Pride in 1993 and it was then a very different event. Pride was then a protest and a defiant gesture, while now it has become a corporate-dominated gay parade.

I was pleased when some of these photographs were shown as a part of the exhibition Queer is Here at the Museum of London in 2006 and a larger set at at ‘Changing the World’, a Gay and Lesbian History and Archives Conference at London Metropolitan Archives in 2005.

Those pictures were in black and white, though I think I may also have taken some in colour, yet to be re-discovered in my archives, and they covered the 10 years from 1993-2002. You can view a set on-line, though there are hundreds more in my files. These include a small number from Pride 1998, which according to Wikipedia didn’t happen.

In 2017 I had decided to photograph the Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc who had joined the official parade in 2016. But in 2017 they were refused entry and instead – as I put it – “reclaimed Pride as protest, gate-crashing the route at Oxford Circus and marching in front of the official parade along the route lined by cheering crowds.”

This should have been the big story about that day’s Pride, but hardly made the news, and I think was totally ignored by the BBC – and doesn’t even get a mention in the Wikipedia article.

After this I decided not to cover Pride in 2018, going instead to photograph a march against the closure of acute facilities at Epsom and St Helier Hospitals in south London while it was happening. The following Saturday I went the following week to photograph the third Croydon Pride Procession, a much smaller and friendlier event.

In 2019 I went to Regent’s Park where people were preparing to join on the end of the huge Pride Parade as a Queer Liberation March in protest against the increasing corporate nature of Pride.

They included some LGBT groups unable to afford the fees to take part in the official parade, but mostly people were there because they felt it vital to get back closer to the origins of Pride, which began with the Stonewall riots 50 years ago led by trans women of colour.

I had to leave well before they set off to join the parade. The did eventually manage to do so, but had to force their way past the Pride stewards. The police had initially tried to stop them but then decided they had to be allowed to march.

Pride was cancelled in both 2020 and 2021. On July 1st 2022 I photographed the Gay Liberation Front UK commemorating their first London Gay Pride March 50 years ago marching through London on exactly the same hour and date. London Pride 2022 took place the following day but I went elsewhere.

More pictures from Pride 2014 on My London Diary at Rain on Pride Parade.

Anti-Racist & Migrant Rights Reclaim Pride – 2017

I’ve almost given up on photographing the annual Pride Parade in central London, which has become such a corporate event, though as in this event in 2017 there are sometimes things happening around it which still have some political edge – and even inside it, generally relegated to well behind the corporate razzmatazz.

As I wrote on 8th July 2017:

“Pride over the years has degenerated from the original protest into a corporate glitterfest led by major corporations which use it as ‘pinkwashing’ to enhance their reputation and it includes groups such as the Home Office, arms companies and police whose activities harm gay people in the UK and across the world.”
My London Diary – July 2017

In 2017 the commercialisation of Pride had reached new heights, with participation limited to those groups who had officially applied and got pride armbands being allowed to join the procession. At least in part this seems to have been an attempt to exclude groups such as the Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc organised and led by Movement for Justice and including Lesbians & Gays Support The Migrants, No Pride in War and London Supports Istanbul Pride who had joined in towards the back of the 2016 parade.

I don’t know if the bloc had made an application, but I think probably not, and they certainly didn’t have the armbands. They marched between police vans that were blocking the entrance to Oxford Circus in front of the march with others lifting up barriers and tried to make their way past the front of the march to join in further back but were stopped by Pride stewards.

This left them immediately in front of the heavily stewarded front of the official parade, and they refused to move unless they were allowed to make their way into the parade. A stalemate ensued, with Pride stewards insisting that they had to leave the area, and the Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc refusing to shift. Police tried to get them to move and also tried to get the Pride stewards to let them into the march, but they remained adamant.

It was time for the parade to start, but it couldn’t. Eventually police sorted out the issue by holding back the official parade while the Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc marched along the parade route past the large crowds to a great deal of applause and some aggravation from Pride stewards along it.

Around a quarter of an hour later, the official parade started, following them along the route. But it was again held up as the front of the procession reached Whitehall, as some of the No Pride in War protesters lay down on the tarmac in front of it. The procession was held up for another 15 minutes as police tried to persuade them to leave – and eventually I think they all got up when finally threatened with arrest.

The Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc had made a stand and had reclaimed Pride as a protest – with a separate official Pride following behind – and the No Pride In War had also made their point against the inclusion of the military in the official event. But “curiously” for such a high-profile protest in an event covered by huge numbers of press from around the world I think it went totally unreported in the mainstream media. For them, Pride is just a colourful spectacle.

Anti-Racist & Migrant Rights reclaim Pride