Campaigns

By Bev Haigh-Jones

Penzance Pride, Saturday 12 September 2026: the starting point and the end result

Sadly, the Newquay Pride event, which should have taken place on Saturday 29 August, was cancelled because of bad weather. However, although the day was cloudy with a stiff breeze, we had no such problems with Penzance Pride on 12 September.

It was due to be a very full day, and we arrived at 9:00 am to erect the gazebo and set up the stand. There was a great atmosphere among the stallholders with us receiving help from others with our gazebo, and us lending a hand to our neighbours. The wind was coming in strong gusts, so although we had lead weights for the legs, in the end we cable-tied our gazebo to the adjacent fixed seating.

Set up and ready to go and some of our earlier visitors

The day started fairly slowly and many of the early visitors were other stallholders and casual walkers, as the parade wasn’t due to arrive until after midday. We spoke to many other volunteers who were there manning their own stalls, and support for a return to the EU was unanimous. It was also lovely to see the support for the team who were manning the RNLI stand, especially as we found from speaking to them that they had been a bit concerned about how they would be received – a sad indictment of our society.

Still early but the numbers are increasing and the dots are building on the board

Once the parade got underway things became a lot busier and the entertainment began. It was lovely to see not just the flamboyant banner bearers and entertainers, but also whole families enjoying the inclusive, friendly atmosphere of the event. There was just one sour note – a man on his mobility scooter whizzing up and down the promenade waving his St George’s flag. He wasn’t well received and the security team made sure that he didn’t get close to the area around the stage.

Some of the parade and one of the Morris Dancers group

With the event in full swing we had a huge variety of visitors to the stall. They included family groups with very young children, teenagers who didn’t have a chance to vote on the issue of Brexit, even though they were in the group who would be most affected by it, groups of young men who we might have expected to be anti-EU but most definitely weren’t, and quite a few European tourists, all of whom were very keen to express their wish that the UK return to the EU.

Young men keen to give their opinions and two young women doing the same

We spoke to lots of lovely people who are as keen as we are to return to the EU, and met some real characters, but we also had conversations with the minority who still believe that Brexit was the right choice. We had a variety of reasons offered as to why leaving the EU was a good idea, but mostly, it boils down to “we got our sovereignty back”. However, we never seem able to find out exactly how that supposed “sovereignty” has benefited the UK. Our hope is that we have now sown the seeds of doubt or raised some questions in the minds of at least a few of the EU sceptics.