The Brighton Naked Bike Ride has been postponed due to safety concerns following the announcement of an anti-racism march announced to counter-act a protest by the far-right.

The 2026 ride was due to take place on Saturday 13th June and would have marked the 20th anniversary of the event through the city. However, following a planned anti-immigration protest by individuals calling for ‘mass deportations’ in the city, a Carnival against Fascism was announced, due to take place on the same day and comprising a coalition of 15 campaign groups and a “national callout” to “antifascist, anti-racist, and Anti [immigration] Raids” activists to take part.

Consequently, the organisers of the Brighton Naked Bike Ride wrote on Facebook that they had made the decision to postpone their event “with a heavy heart”.

“As organisers, we feel we will be unable to guarantee the safety of riders, which is our main concern. This was not a decision we took lightly but amongst the committee members we felt we had no choice.

“Brighton has a long and proud history of making our voices heard on many issues that affect us and we propose to postpone the ride rather than cancel entirely. We hope to announce a date in the late summer to early Autumn to ride again.”

The organisers added that “bigger issues were around being prevented from passing through the city as there will likely be blocked roads and we know there will be a large police presence. We also cannot risk a confrontation with anybody that may end in violence towards riders as has happened elsewhere on more than one occasion because of nudity.”

The World Naked Bike Rides are held in protest against fossil-fuel and car dependency and see protestors ride through cities in several countries. Many participants also daub themselves in body paint to illustrate their message. Similar protests have also taken place in the United States against the immigration policies of Donald Trump.

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In recent years, the rides have been subject to increased security, with this year’s London ride due to employ more professional security in response to “increasingly troublesome” logistics of running the event in the capital. They have also been criticised by the online political right, with one Reform UK MP supporting a petition for the events to be banned, using hostile language describing the participants as “perverts”. The events have also been subject to violence.

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Following the assault of a participant of the ride in Colchester, for which the assailant received a 14-month suspended sentence after falsely accusing the riders of being “sexual predators”, the victim defended the naked bike rides as “perfectly legal”, adding “we live in a society where consenting adults have rights. We want to try and get people to think in a different way to what they are. A lot of people have pointed out online about the ‘harm’ to children seeing us ride. No child has ever been harmed by the sight of a naked body and never will. We just hope to change people’s mindset.”

World Naked Bike Ride London previously told road.cc its events maintain public support and the ride “is primarily a lawful public protest for positive change” and “we do not behave badly”.