Posing as BP representatives, the group snuck into G-A-Y Late bar wearing suits and ties to ask the pride goers how best to exploit the queer student community with a mock survey – questions included Q: ‘What does the term Pink Wash mean to you?

a) A laundry setting for you hot pink underwear b) When a corporation uses the queer community to clean their unethical reputation c) A lesbian hair do

Later that evening, the group stripped to the waist in Heaven nightclub and donned pink shower caps and pink rubber gloves as they rubbed pink shower gel over each other and scrubbed their bodies with pink sponges. The group say that the public wash symbolised BPs attempts to use LGBTQIA events as a means of sanitising their tarred reputation, a practice known as ‘pinkwashing’. During the pink wash a crowd chanted ‘No Pride in BP’ and some of the students that the group had been speaking to grabbed sponges and joined the topless demonstration. Eventually the group were ejected from the venue by security.

BP sponsorship has become an increasingly controversial issue in recent years. Institutions like the Tate Modern and the British Museum have been the scene of a series of environmental protests over their sponsorship deals with BP. Tate recently lost a three year legal battle over its refusal to disclose how much money it was receiving from BP.

Critics argue that BP’s sponsorship programme enables it to gain a level of social legitimacy that it does not deserve given that it has been responsible for a series of environmental catastrophes like the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The fossil fuel industry’s business model recklessly relies on burning more oil, coal and gas than is safe to burn if we are to avoid catastrophic climate. Archbishop Desmond Tutu recently called for an ‘anti-apartheid style boycott’ of the institutions that are taking sponsorship money from BP.

The protesters have also set up a spoof website www.lgbp.info where they will be sharing information about BP’s sponsorship programme alongside its climate, environmental and human rights impacts.

Naomi Wilkins, a student at the University of Manchester who took part in the protest said: “As a queer person, it makes me feel shame, not pride that a company like BP that is so heavily involved in trashing the climate, and with such an appalling environmental and human rights record, could be associated with such a positive and important event like Student Pride. Queer rights and visibility should be promoted in a way that isn’t compromised through the involvement of one of the most despicable companies out there.”

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