Met chief says event will look and feel different following terrorist attacks while organisers face claims of commercialisation

Hundreds of thousands of people attending the Pride festival in London have been told to expect the most visible policing effort in the event’s 45-year history.



Attendees at this year’s parade on Saturday will be guarded by armed police and protected by concrete bollards. They have been told by the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, to expect an event that “looks and feels a bit different this year” due to the ongoing terrorist threat.

The Met has received no specific threats to the LGBT parade and festival, but Dick said police had “adapted our posture [and] changed some of our plans” to maintain safety in the wake of the Manchester and London terror attacks.

The enhanced security measures, which will include plainclothes officers in the crowds, were developed together with Pride in London, the event’s organisers, and had their full support, co-chair Alison Camps told the Guardian. “The police are going to have a more visible uniformed presence. From our point of view, that’s a good thing.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An Absolutely Fabulous themed float from last year’s parade. Photograph: Mark Thomas/Rex/Shutterstock

The organisers of the event, which is expected to attract a record of up to a million participants over two days, are confident the atmosphere will not be affected. But the more rigid policing follows broader criticism that Pride had become a victim of its own success. One of the busiest events in the capital after the new year fireworks and the London marathon, Pride has been accused of having lost some of its political edge to a more corporate, commercialised feel.

Writing in the Guardian this week, the gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, who has marched in every parade since 1972, said it had “morphed into a commercialised, bureaucratic and rule-bound event”, strangled by the demands of City Hall, one of its key funders, and Westminster council, the licensing authority.

Tatchell argued that last year’s introduction of wristbands for marchers, which limit numbers to 26,500, meant “the parade feels increasingly regimented, commodified and straitjacketed”.

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Such criticisms of the Pride movement in London and globally are nothing new. What began as a highly political protest in response to the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York has grown into a huge global movement, with 116 different events in cities and towns across the UK alone, according to Steve Taylor of the UK Pride Organisers’ Network, which was set up last year to share expertise and best practice.

But with growing acceptance and popularity came criticisms it was morphing into a hedonistic party dominated by sponsorship from brands eager to “pinkwash” their corporate image.

Activist and performer Dan Glass was among protesters who marched two years ago carrying a black coffin “to mourn the death of Pride’s integrity” in protest at some of the groups marching, and “to resurrect the radical roots of Pride and remind our community that Pride began as a protest – not as a product sold to us by Tesco”.

“I agree Pride should be rooted in the community; that is absolutely right and absolutely at the core of what we believe as an organisation,” said Camps. But on the question of sponsorship, she said: “It costs quite a lot of money to put on Pride in London. And we know we can’t raise that kind of money from the community alone. And that’s one of the reasons we engage with sponsors.”

However, she stressed: “As an organisation we are very active in terms of fighting for the rights of LGBT+ people. We are not by any means oblivious to the need for political engagement; we’re a volunteering organisation and we continually encourage people to get involved.”

The wristbands – which the organisers say are just part of the weekend-wide festival – were a joint decision by the organisers and multiple agencies as “a sensible way to manage crowd numbers and safety”, a spokeswoman for Westminster council said. Pride in London stressed that every group that applied to take part in the parade had been able to do so.

A spokesman for Sadiq Khan, who has been a vocal supporter of the event, said the mayor would lead this year’s parade.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Participants in the Pride London march. Photograph: Vianney Le Caer/Rex/Shutterstock

Rita McLoughlin, a volunteer coordinator of the LGBT charity London Friend, will march with about 150 representatives of the group. She said: “It is quite commercialised now, but then again it does cost money, and the people who run Pride are doing their best to put on an annual event.”

Even if Pride had become less political, she said, its importance in celebrating people from previously marginalised groups could not be overstated.

“There’s a big celebration aspect to it for us. People have started emailing me today saying: ‘Happy Pride.’ It’s a greeting, a bit like saying ‘Happy Christmas’ and it does feel a bit like Christmas for us.”