Cas Middlemas, Leeds and West Yorkshire Socialist Party
Socialist Party members participated in Leeds Pride, the second largest free Pride in the country. Unfortunately, like many other Pride events, Leeds has become increasingly sanitised and commodified.
One of the main sponsors was First Direct bank, whose parent company, HSBC, has millions of pounds of investments from firms that sell arms to Israel and bulldoze Palestinian homes and communities. Despite this, the political mood could not be dampened.
People that we talked to at our Socialist Party campaign stall shared the sentiment that they were glad to see the Tories gone, but felt that Labour would be much of the same. Many expressed anger over the new government policy to continue the ban on puberty blockers for under-18s.
Support for Palestine was also strong, with a large bloc. However, they, along with the entire trade union bloc, had been relegated to the back of the march.
When talking to older LGBTQ+ people, they acknowledged that while some things had got better, queer nightlife and community was getting actively worse. Many felt that Pride had become one big advert, and that local councils were responsible for damaging community spaces.
The highlight for me was seeing the positive discussions and the hard work put in by Socialist Party supporters, selling our newspaper, raising money for our fighting fund, and most importantly, putting forward the case for socialism.
