Today the Divest Pride team launched our Visions for Pride video, and delivered it with this letter to Pride in London, LCR Pride, Northern Pride and Pride Glasgow.
Dear Pride Glasgow, Pride in London, LCR Pride and Northern Pride,
People & Planet's Divest Pride campaign has spent this Pride season urging you to reconsider your current sponsorship deal with Barclays bank. As the largest fossil fuel funders in Europe, Barclays have given over £91 billion in support of neocolonial extraction projects that endanger the lives of our community and push us further along the road to climate catastrophe.
We know that the spirit of Pride is about resistance and community, and we simply cannot be complicit in this kind of pinkwashing. It's time for the queer community to take a clear stand against the cynical marketing of the fossil fuel industry and its financial backers, and create a Pride that supports liberation for all and our collective futures.
In the spirit of that resistance and community, today we are delivering to you our video outlining visions for a better Pride.
This includes visions for a Pride of the future, collected from queer organisers all over the country. We hope it will encourage your organising team to reflect on the responsibility you have to be accountable to those you represent.
Our demand is that you drop Barclays as a sponsor and commit to no future ties to fossil fuel industry and this email serves to let you know that this campaign will not end with the 2020 Pride season - it will end when you have committed to cutting ties with Barclays.
We hope to see in 2021, a fossil-free, fairer and more just Pride, standing in solidarity with those most on the margins of our community.
We look forward to hearing from you and your thoughts on the future of Pride.
In solidarity and in pride,
Divest Pride Organising Team