Is it time to reclaim Pride?

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Catch up and coming up:

• In last week’s Answers in The Post, we consulted experts to find out more about mayor Steve Rotheram’s flagship project: the Mersey Barrage. It got lots of you talking, with most sceptical of whether Rotheram can pull off such a large project. “Great idea that's been talked about since before the 80s. But Rotheram is incapable of delivering working trains on time and on budget and is just about able to buy a bus!” one of you said. Nevertheless, the mayor’s office told The Post they intend to start building in just three years time — read the full piece here.
• Over the weekend, Laurence answered the question on everyone’s pastry-crumbed lips: why wasn’t Sayers the Scouse Greggs? Plenty of nostalgic comments on this one — add your own here.
• Coming up this week, Abi revisits an investigation into why so many companies flee the city. And, Liverpool’s finest David Lloyd returns to your pages with his take on our Biennial offerings.
• Plus: Jack Walton delivers another fantastic scoop, this time giving an update on our landmark investigation into Blue Coat School. Catch up on the first two investigations here.

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The big story: Is it time to reclaim Pride?

Top line: The annual LGBT+ event and the city’s March with Pride will not be going ahead this year, with organisers citing "significant financial and organisational challenges". 

Context: Last Thursday, the board of directors of the LCR Pride Foundation — the charity that organises Liverpool’s annual Pride event — issued a statement: “It is with great sadness that we announce the cancellation of this year’s Pride in Liverpool and March with Pride.”

The announcement sent shockwaves through the city. The yearly festival of LGBT+ culture attracted 60,000 people last year and is one of the largest Gay Pride celebrations in Europe. 

“In recent months the charity has faced significant financial and organisational challenges, which have impacted timescales and resulted in it reverting to an almost entirely volunteer-led operation,” LCR Pride continued. 

History: In the late 2000s, Liverpool was the largest British city not to sanction a Pride event. After the success of the Capital of Culture celebrations in 2008, the goal to host an annual LGBT+ celebration looked attainable, and pressure for the city to do so mounted after the homophobic murder of Michael Causer in Whiston. The following year, a council motion in support of Liverpool Pride tabled by Nick Small was approved. In 2010, Liverpool hosted its first Pride, centred on the gay quarter around Dale Street and Stanley Street and was attended by around 21,000 people. 

In subsequent years, the success of the event has grown. Almost twice as many people turned out in 2011, and in 2013 a record 75,000 were in attendance at the festival, which by then had grown to incorporate the Pier Head. Ten years later, Pride had also spread to the Albert Dock, Mann Island, the Museum of Liverpool, the Met Quarter and St Johns, dominating the city centre. All events have been held as close as possible to 2nd August, the anniversary of Michael Causer’s death.

Why not this year? In July 2014, an open letter — entitled “Liverpool Pride Drop Barclays” — to the trustees of LCR Pride expressed concern regarding the organisation’s partnership with the bank. The letter was signed by several LGBT+ individuals and organisations, including Reclaim Pride and LGBT+ Socialists.

According to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Barclays “provides £6.1 billion in loans and underwriting, to 9 companies whose weapons, components and military technology are being used by Israel in its attacks on Palestinians”, numbers cited by the letter. (Barclays have stated this claim “misunderstands” what they do: “Whilst we provide financial services to these companies, we are not making investments for Barclays and Barclays is not a ‘shareholder’ or ‘investor’ in that sense.”)

In May this year, LCR Pride agreed to end its relationship with Barclays, citing not the bank’s position on Israel but its chief executive, CS Venkatakrishnan, telling reporters that Barclays would not allow trans women employees to use female bathrooms, to ensure that it complies with the recent supreme court ruling on gender identity and the Equality Act. “These actions not only delegitimise trans women and violate their human rights,” LCR Pride said in a statement, “they also put them in danger by emboldening those who hold transphobic views.”

When LCR Pride went into detail regarding the “significant financial and organisational challenges” that have prevented the festival from taking place this year, the statement mentioned that severing their relationship with Barclays “created further delays to planning” and had “a substantial impact at an already challenging time.” 

Response: Harry Doyle, Liverpool City Council’s cabinet member for culture, called the cancellation of 2025’s festival “hugely disappointing” considering the success of last year’s event and “how important [Pride in Liverpool] has become for our LGBTQ+ community.”

Doyle confirmed that the council had been in discussions with LCR Pride over the last few weeks. The Post reached out to the council to find out whether extra funding had been discussed, but a spokesperson referred us back to their original statement. 

The Post also contacted some of the prominent signatories to the Liverpool Pride Drop Barclays letter. Paul McGowan, who signed the letter on behalf of LGBT+ Socialists, told us that the wide range of grassroots organisers and allies who put their names to it “were concerned about the increasing corporatisation of Pride — particularly the presence of a bank like Barclays”, citing the bank’s record of funding fossil fuels and complicity in Israel’s genocide. 

“Pride started as a protest, not as a PR opportunity for banks and police forces,” McGowan told The Post. “We’re disappointed that LCR Pride has chosen to cancel the event rather than reimagine it without corporate and police involvement.”

Bottom line: As one of our readers asked us last week, does this mean that Pride will go back to being a protest march through Liverpool centre “without corporate sponsorship and political opportunism?”

“[Pride] is not our event,” said Harry Doyle, responding to The Guide Liverpool’s managing director Jay Hynd on LinkedIn. “It is a community (quite rightly) run event and always has been.”

Although 2010 was the first Pride event sanctioned by Liverpool Council, it was not the first of its kind altogether. In 1979, Liverpool held an unofficial Pride, one of the first in the UK. This was to commemorate ten years since the Stonewall riots in 1969, indicative of the protest movement origins of Pride that McGowan references. Further Pride events were put on in the 1990s.

This seems to be something the council recognise, too: “Pride is deeply political, as it should be,” Doyle continued in a subsequent post on LinkedIn, “and removing independence away from the community is not the right thing to do.”

Perhaps it is time Pride was reclaimed. To quote one of our readers, “we could have a Liverpool Pride day where everyone does their own thing and venues are encouraged to put on events. We don’t need sponsorship or permission to be ourselves, out, loud and joyous.”

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Photo of the week

A lovely black and white snapshot of Liverpool’s skyline. Photo taken by Reddit user u/Maleficent_Check5459.

Have a photo to share? Email editor@livpost.co.uk with your best snaps for a chance to be included in next week’s edition. 

Your Post briefing

A new cancer centre will be built on the former site of Royal Liverpool University Hospital. The hospital, which opened in 1978, was decommissioned when the new hospital opened nearby in October 2022. Since then, the old 11-storey building has been demolished to make way for redevelopment. Construction will soon begin on the new cancer centre, with works set to be completed by Autumn 2026. A wider plan for the site also includes a Liverpool centre for cancer charity Maggie's, which is set to open in 2027. 

Two tower blocks in Kirkby are costing Knowsley Council around £3,000 per day to make sure they are safe. Beech Rise and Willow Rise were found to be in breach of fire safety regulations, meaning hundreds of residents now need to be relocated. The flats were previously managed by a private company, but after they terminated their contract Knowsley Council stepped in to manage the building. Now, trained personnel have been ordered to patrol the tower blocks on a recommendation by Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, until all tenants have been moved into alternative accommodation. Knowsley councillor Tony Brennan told the BBC that residents in the two blocks “have suffered from years of mismanagement and a lack of maintenance”. He continued: "This has now culminated in such serious health and safety issues that the Fire Service feel the building is unsafe to occupy without a 24/7 waking watch”. Know any more about this story? Email abi@livpost.co.uk. 

And Merseyside Police’s former headquarters will be bought by Homes England. Canning Place, which was the home of the region’s police force from 1977 to 2022, will be transformed into a mixed-use development, according to plans by the government’s housing and regeneration agency — incorporating residential, hotel, retail, leisure and commercial spaces. Currently, the Police and Crime Commissioner is working with the Merseyside Police estates team to complete the sale, with the aim of exchanging contracts by the end of the year. Then, Homes England will begin its search for a development partner and secure planning consent from Liverpool City Council to build on the site.

Post Picks

🎨Milo Lounge is hosting its popular Paint and Sip event on Thursday. This time, the theme is Enchanting Forest. Head down to Lark Lane at 7pm to make sure you don’t miss this one. Tickets here.

📖On Friday, debut non-fiction writer Charlie Colenutt will be at the West Kirby Bookshop to celebrate the publication of his new book, Is This Working? The book focuses on the lives of 100 strangers, digging into what they all do for work. The event starts at 7pm – tickets here.

🧘On Saturday, Bundobust hosts its yoga class and chai morning. Starting from 10am, this one-hour session includes a post stretch house chai or soft drink, and 25% off food with your ticket for your next visit. Make sure to bring your own mat — details here.

🎸Liverpool collective Klof hosts the return of DIY folk songstress Anastasia Coope after her show at Artefact last year. The event kicks off at Rough Trade at 7pm on Saturday. More details here.

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