The Red Arrows flyover at Pride is cause for celebration – it shows just how tolerant Britain has become

This is not about militarisation, it's a momentous sign of the standards of decency that modern Britain upholds and its service people fight for overseas

Protesters are unhappy that the Red Arrows will perform a flyover over the Pride Parade (Getty Images)

Last night, lesbian and gay activists gathered outside City Hall to protest. It wasn't to confront homophobia or transphobia, or pray for the gay men targeted by Isis, or even to highlight the dangers of leaving the European Union for LGBT Brits.

No, it was to protest London's LGBT Pride parade hosting a flyover by the Red Arrows.

Many would consider this progress. It wasn't so long ago that being gay in the armed forces was banned, and it's still the case that the macho culture of our armed forces harbours homophobia in its ranks.

Yet this set of activists had decided to focus on the supposed “militarisation of pride”. Their message? You can be gay in the army – we just don't want you to talk about it. Where have we heard that before?

It's the same message that LGBT people serving their country were given for decades: don't ask, don't tell. Yet this time it's the other way around.

Until recently, LGBT service people lost their jobs if they were “found out”. They have fought hard just to just be recognised, let alone have the same rights and protections as everyone else in the workplace.

Just last week, Carl Austin-Behan was made the first gay Lord Mayor of Manchester. His own career in the RAF had been ended because he was openly gay, not so many years ago.

The protesters say involving the military in Pride, the annual celebration of LGBT life and culture, is “deeply offensive”. “The event is providing a platform for the RAF to sanitise its image and divert attention away from its role in executing British military objectives across the world, and the human suffering that such operations involve," they state.

This isn't just a twisting of the progress we have made, it's a re-writing of history. Bigotry and oppression have been actively fought by the British armed forces and their service people. When Hitler took control of Germany in the 1930s, homosexuals were rounded up and sent to prisons and concentration camps. British soldiers were on the frontline of confronting that fascism, as they have been time and again in the intervening years.

As those activists stand by City Hall cloaked with their self-righteous placards, gay men in Syria are facing barbarity of medieval proportions. It is British military and intelligence confronting new forms of fascism, those fascists still so ready to persecute LGBT citizens.

What Pride London has achieved with the first Red Arrows flyover is not militarisation, it is a momentous sign of the standards of decency and tolerance that modern Britain upholds.

The message of Pride is this: if you're young and gay, you should feel as welcome to be a soldier or an RAF pilot as any other job. And as a gay Briton, you should keep safe in the knowledge that Britain is fighting for the rights of LGBT people all over the world.