I’m urging Londoners to stand alongside their LGBTQIA+ neighbours more loudly than ever, writes Sadiq Khan

In a riot of colour, our city’s extraordinary LGBTQIA+ community filled London with light and laughter in a way only they can.

As ever, there was music, dancing, and some of the most outrageously impressive outfits you’ve ever seen.

In my decade as Mayor, Pride has been a constant.

In that time, I’ve walked alongside tens of thousands of wonderful Londoners celebrating who they are and who they love.

But the truth is that, beyond the scenes of jubilation, the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights in the UK and around the world has started to stall.

For anyone who aspires to be an ally for our LGBTQIA+ community, this should be a wake-up call.

Because, if it is to mean something, allyship shouldn’t always be easy. It is at moments like this – moments when our friends, family and colleagues are under attack – that the strength of our solidarity is tested.

That’s why, this year, I’m urging Londoners to stand alongside their LGBTQIA+ neighbours more loudly than ever.

True allyship means taking a stand against negative and hateful voices wherever they are found – something I know a lot about.

It means squarely challenging reactionaries who are trying to wind back the clock on progress by turning the LGBTQIA+ community into a political football.

And it means speaking out in defence of a community, who have been thrown into the centre of a cruel and uncaring culture war that has seen them demonised and denigrated in the media.

This is a challenge for all of us.

It’s been fifty-five years since Fannie Lou Hamer, a hero of the civil rights movement, told the National Women’s Political Caucus that ‘nobody’s free until everybody’s free'.

Today, those immortal words ring as true as ever.

London stands tall as a beacon of progress and possibility because we don’t just tolerate each other, we celebrate each other – no matter our sexuality, gender, religion, background or ethnicity.

Our freedoms are guaranteed by a social contract that we all agree to uphold – in the knowledge that, when we come to our neighbour’s defence, they will do the same for us.  

The open society we have built in London has been hard-fought and hard-won. But we cannot afford to take it for granted.

Today, the same dark forces of fear and division that are targeting the LGBTQIA+ community are whipping up hostility and hatred towards other religious and ethnic minority communities, too.

If we are to defeat them, Londoners must stand together and fight for a city where everyone – no matter who they love, where they come from, or the God they worship – can live side by side in peace and with pride.

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