London’s Pride parade has been cancelled again

Every year, Pride not only allows people the chance to celebrate their sexuality and the LGBTQ+ community as a whole, but also puts a spotlight on important issues in front of tens of thousands of people. For the second year in a row, though, the pandemic has sadly put paid to the annual in-person parade taking over the streets of central London. 

Christopher Joell-Deshields, executive director of Pride in London, made the announcement in a YouTube video on Friday (August 6), citing challenges from the government’s updated Covid-19 guidelines for large-scale public events as the reason behind the cancellation. Pride 2021 was due to take place on September 11.

‘It became clear when working through final risk assessments that our event could not provide the level of mitigation expected from the local public health team and the government,’ Joell-Deshields explained. To make the event work under the current legislation, he said the parade would have to be scrapped and two or three stages held in different areas of London, each with limited tickets. 

‘This goes against everything we want Pride in London to be, all that we have been so far,’ he added. ‘No parade, no protest, means no Pride. We cannot waver from that commitment to you, our community. How are we meant to tell some people that they have tickets and others they don’t?’ 

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said it was ‘a real shame’ that the parade had been cancelled again, but ‘we must still be cautious about the spread of Covid-19 and it is understandable why the Pride in London committee have made this decision’. 

The last in-person Pride parade in London is estimated to have attracted more than 1.5 million people. Pride organisers are now turning their focus to next year’s event, which will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Pride in the capital. It’s promised to be the ‘most inclusive and queerest event yet’, while the team are also calling on the government to declare 2022 ‘the year of queer’. 

It might not have a parade, but you can enjoy alfresco drag brunch at Between the Bridges this summer.

Yes Please is the latest addition to Dalston’s thriving LGBTQ+ scene.