KeshetUK, an “education and training charity with a mission to ensure that Jewish LGBT+ people and their families are included throughout Jewish life in the UK,” has announced it will not participate in this year’s London Pride parade—for the second year in a row—citing serious concerns over the safety of British Jews.
The Pride in London Parade will take place on Saturday, July 5.
The charity said it was not planning to have its Jewish bloc at the UK’s largest LGBT+ event after Pride in London declined several safety-related requests.
KeshetUK, which led the Jewish bloc in the gay parade for close to a decade, said it had no choice but to withdraw after parade organizers refused repeated appeals for protective measures, including antisemitism awareness training for Pride officials.
The European Conservative noted that “While a ‘Queers for Palestine’ campaign would not last long in Gaza, it appears that the same activists would happily impose their own brand of intimidation on charities from the ‘wrong’ background. Antisemitism in Britain has skyrocketed since the Hamas-led pogrom of October 7th, with even a British hostage in a same-sex relationship getting little sympathy from LGBT pressure groups.”
The Jewish Chronicle reported that, according to KeshetUK, the gay charity first reached out to Pride in London in July 2024 in an effort to hold “good faith, open-minded discussions to find solutions to our concerns,” but received no response until early 2025.
The charity requested that antisemitism awareness training be provided to event officials and sought assurances that UK gay Jews would be both physically and psychologically safe at the event, given the sharp rise in antisemitic incidents and LGBT+ hate crimes across the UK. These requests were rejected, according to the Jewish group.
KeshetUK finally issued a statement saying, “After various failures from Pride in London, we feel unable to say to British Jews that Pride in London has done everything in their power to keep us safe. We desperately wish this was not the case.”
A spokesperson for KeshetUK added: “British LGBT+ Jews deserve the space to celebrate our identity alongside all other LGBT+ people in the UK. We are hugely disappointed in Pride in London.”
