right to parenthood and child-raising, and the highest age of consent in the continent. With no end in sight to the government from which these attacks came, sections of the lesbian and gay communities have looked with longing at the liberal regimes of Europe.
Surely 1992 will bring these joys to benighted, backward Britain? This is an illusion. Top of Major sagenda is certainly not bringing about an improvement of our lot.
In a prolonged economic recession, far more likely than any general liberalisation of laws is a generalisation of social and political attacks on public spending and on all who stand in the way of restoring the profitability of That means the welfare state, health, trade union rights. It means increased state powers to drive these changes through against popular resistance.
Is it likely that Britain will adopt Denmark's legalised gay marriages or Holland's state support for lesbian and gay organisations? Or rather that Europe will fall in line with more reactionary regimes in Britain and Germany?
The other side of European integration is Fortress Europe. The measures are being put into place to keep out 'non-Europeans' - ie black people. At the forefront of growing harassment of black communities are the resurgent ultra-right and fascist groups, feeding on the racism generated by government policies.
These are the same people who as happily attack lesbians and gay men, the heirs of the nazis who herded gays into the gas chambers in hundreds of thousands. A European state based on racist criteria of who is a 'real European' will be no friend to black people, to black lesbians and gay men - or the lesbian and gay community as a whole.
Europride has not escaped these racist consequences. The original symbol was two - white - hands: symbolic indeed of the white domination of the lesbian and gay movement, and of the unaccountability of the Pride committee, now a PLC.
Far from being the answer to our problems, 'Europe' threatens us with new and even more restrictive measures. The real solution lies in a hard political battle, not anti-political carnivals.
It lies not in a white Europride but in an active struggle against racism. It is not to be found in courting wet Tories, but in allying with the oppressed.
Unless we can win some genuine lesbian and gay internationalism, Europride may soon become Eurodespair. Printed by Irkkant Press, Edenbridge, Kent. Published by Idorare Ltd, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU