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Metro
29-05-2025
- Metro
Peter Tatchell 'laughed at by police before being removed' from Birmingham Pride
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video A veteran LGBTQ+ rights campaigner has claimed he was 'forcibly removed' from Birmingham Pride after police 'laughed' at him. Peter Tatchell, 73, said an officer ordered him to leave the Pride parade, claiming event organisers had requested his removal. Pride organisers have denied this, stressing to Metro that they permitted Tatchell to march. Tatchell gave a speech at the start of the parade in the West Midlands city on Saturday morning where he spoke about the arrests of gay and bisexual men before homosexuality was decriminalised in 2004. He was using a loudhailer and holding a sign reading: 'West Midlands police refuse to apologise for anti-LGBT+ witch-hunts. SHAME! #ApologiseNow' during the march. About an hour later, he set off on the march. The campaigner said he and five others from the Peter Tatchell Foundation were walking down New Street when they saw several police officers approach them. The activist said a senior officer told him to leave, saying he did not have a permit. He added he was then 'frog marched' out of the parade. With thousands of members from all over the world, our vibrant LGBTQ+ WhatsApp channel is a hub for all the latest news and important issues that face the LGBTQ+ community. Simply click on this link, select 'Join Chat' and you're in! Don't forget to turn on notifications! Speaking to Metro, Tatchell said: 'The police response was to crowd around me, blowing whistles, so my message could not be heard. 'What was particularly upsetting was when I told the story of how two men attempted suicide because of police prosecution. The officers laughed in my face.' Tatchell said: 'I showed him my wristband and said, 'Here's proof I have permission, plus, I am a guest, so they would never instruct me to leave'. 'I asked the officer what the name of the Pride organiser who instructed you to remove me was. No answer.' Photographs and video taken at the parade show officers leading Tatchell out of the parade, holding him by the arms and forcing him forward. He was not arrested. Tatchell said: 'The officers dumped me on the pavement. I got the very strong impression that, if I had further resisted, I would have been arrested. 'It's sadly typical of the way in which the police across Britain are increasingly clamping down on freedom of expression and the right to protest. 'I'm just astonished that the police would dare abuse their power to fabricate allegations and to stop me making a lawful criticism.' Birmingham Pride CEO Lawrence Barton said 'categorically' that organisers allowed Tatchell to march. Barton told Metro: 'Peter was an invited guest speaker to Pride, he was asked by me to speak at the Big Free Community event and at Centenary Square to officially launch Pride. 'His foundation was officially booked through our official process. Peter's call for an apology from [West Midlands Police] is a position I support.' Before being gay was fully decriminalised, UK police forces routinely raided nightclubs, bars and saunas, particularly in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Officers held stakeouts in parks and public toilets to arrest queer people for 'gross indecency', while some were convicted for public displays of affection under public order and breach of the peace laws. West Midlands Police has not formally apologised for the decades-old arrests, unlike other forces such as the Met Police. Chief Constable Craig Guildford declined to do so in 2023 when asked by Tatchell, saying the police were responsible for enforcing laws which would be viewed 'very differently today'. Tatchell said: 'There were probably 50 officers marching in the parade. Not a single one at any point expressed sorrow or regret about the way in which the LGBTQ+ community had been ill-treated in the past.' Marching alongside Tatchell was Matthew Lloyd, a member of the inclusive faith group Queer Church Birmingham. The former national co-chair of LGBT+ Labour told Metro that calling on the West Midlands Police to apologise is a 'long-standing demand in our community'. He said: 'It's disgraceful that officers forcibly removed Peter from the parade – especially under the false claim that Pride organisers had asked for it. 'This heavy-handed policing reflects a deeper problem: a lack of understanding of Pride as a protest and a deafness to the police's own history when dealing with the queer community, our venues and our safe spaces.' More Trending The force told Metro: 'We assisted security staff at the event with the removal of a man who made his way amongst people who were taking part in the parade. He was not arrested.' Asked about allegations that officers 'laughed' at Tatchell, the police said: 'West Midlands Police have not received a complaint about this but we are open to listen to any which are formally made to us.' Ahead of the parade, the police said that officers will be 'out and about keeping you safe at Birmingham Pride'. Chief Superintendent Phil Dolby said: 'Our officers are there to support you, so please do speak to them if you have any concerns about safety – or feel free to just say hello.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Pillion review – I experienced one of the filthiest films I've ever seen at Cannes MORE: Plans to ban Pride events in Hungary criticised by 17 other countries MORE: 'Humanising trans people is so important right now – our BBC series does that'
Telegraph
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
It shouldn't take Peter Tatchell to tell us our asylum system is broken
Asylum seekers are gaming the system. They're pretending to be gay to stay in Britain. These bogus homosexuals are exploiting our kindness – or our weakness, some might say – to get a foot in the door of our nation. Who's been making this claim? An old-style Tory, perhaps, the sort who has sleepless nights fretting over our porous borders? Actually it's Peter Tatchell, the famed agitator for gay rights. Yes, one of Britain's best-known Left-wing rabble-rousers, a man who loves nothing better than a noisy protest, is raising the alarm about phoney asylum-seeking. When even a Leftie like Tatchell worries out loud that people are lying their way into the country, it's time to pay attention. In an interview this week Tatchell warned that some foreigners are play-acting as gay to win the sympathy of woke Britain. These fauxmosexuals – if you will – are applying for membership of organisations like the Peter Tatchell Foundation in order to pass as gay. Tatchell clocked a spike in 'small donations' from Pakistani men. Some give as little as £3 and then speedily request membership cards or letters to support their asylum applications. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to see what's happening here – these men are seeking 'proof of homosexuality' to swindle the Home Office and make it believe they'll be strung up if they're sent home. Tatchell says his foundation sometimes receives as many as 30 small donations a day. They're literally playing 'the gay card.' These fake gays crave a piece of paper with their name alongside Peter Tatchell's in the hope that a Home Office bureaucrat will stamp 'APPROVED' on their applications. One wonders how many foreigners are cosplaying as oppressed to win asylum here. We already know about the scourge of fake conversions to Christianity. Last year a whistleblowing priest said there is a 'veritable industry of asylum baptisms' in the CofE. There's a 'conveyor belt' of such sacrilegious stunts, he said, with asylum-seekers pining that splash of baptismal water that might convince the Home Office they were repressed back home. And too often, he said, the Church is complicit in the pantomime Christianity of these cynical asylum-seekers. Tatchell has proved himself a braver voice than many of the nation's bishops by calling out the 'fake conversions' to homosexuality that are also taking place. Asylum seekers who pretend to be gay or Christian are being deeply dishonest. Falsehoods are not a good foundation on which to build your residency here, far less your future citizenship. But the real problem is the system itself. It's too soft, too gullible. There will always be asylum seekers playing tricks – what we need to ask is why the Home Office is so trickable. There have been some mad cases lately. Like the Albanian criminal whose deportation was halted because his kid is a picky eater. Or the Nigerian rapist who's still here because European judges ruled that he has the right to 'family life' in the UK. If some foreigners think Blighty is a soft touch, easily hoodwinked, can we blame them? The horrible irony is that some of the fake gays will likely be homophobic. Coming from Muslim countries, they may well feel hostile towards gay people. If the Home Office is letting in homophobes wearing the mask of homosexuality, that is unforgivable. There are genuinely oppressed people who could do with Britain's help. Real gay people in countries like Pakistan. Women who hate the hijab in Iran. Christians suffering harassment under the Taliban. These good people lose out when we let phonies bring the system into disrepute.
