A few days ago, I wrote It Begins With Exclusion, where I said that the refusal to display the Rainbow Pride flag and Durham’s withdrawal of funding for the city’s Pride event were the beginnings of an attack on the LGBTQ+ community.

Today I learned that another Reform-led council has said it will no longer “support” the town’s Pride event (which it doesn’t financially support anyway). The reasons given are far more revealing than the decision itself:

“We don’t consider celebrations of sexuality, especially those with left-wing political leanings such as Pride, to be appropriate for the council to dedicate valuable officer resources.”

Council leader George Woodward

Pride only appears “left wing” if you already stand far enough to the right. Strip away the rhetoric and what remains is a civic event built around visibility, community, and survival. You can call that political if you want, but so is everything that involves being seen.

I don’t think this is accidental framing. I think it is a carefully softened way of saying something less acceptable out loud.

“deeply concerned that Pride has become affiliated with harmful transgender ideology”

Council leader George Woodward

Trans rights are an easier target because they are already under sustained pressure across politics and media. But “transgender ideology” is not an ideology. It is a lived reality. And right now that reality is, bluntly, fucking awful for a lot of people.

According to one of the organisers, Miguel Doforo, “Libraries should serve all people in their communities, yet staff have been told to remove all references to Pride & rainbows, books have all had to be removed from display.”

The council says no books have been removed. Even if that is technically true, it is clear that libraries which are there for everybody are now being used as weapons to erase the queer community.

We’ve seen that pattern elsewhere. We know what it looks like when public institutions start “soft managing” what is acceptable to display.

Anthony Burns, former leader of St Helens Council, said: “We understand the election result and respect the democratic right of the people to vote the way that they did.”

David Baines MP for St Helens North said: “Reform won the election so they have every right to make decisions like this.”

No.

That is not how rights work.

Democratic mandate does not automatically convert into moral permission. Elections decide who governs, not what is justifiable once they do.

Across Reform-led councils, Pride is being scaled back or pushed out of visible civic space. In Essex, council facilities are being told to “scale back” Pride involvement. In Havering, the annual Pride celebration was cancelled.

Taken individually, each of these can be framed as administrative decisions. Taken together, they form a pattern: Pride is being moved out of public space, one procedural step at a time.

That is what worries me.

Because exclusion rarely arrives all at once. It arrives in pieces that can each be defended on their own.

And I think there is a point where “administrative adjustment” stops being neutral and starts becoming something else entirely.

If this continues, I don’t believe it stays at visibility. Visibility is always the first layer. What comes after depends on how comfortably people accept the first layer disappearing.

I believe that erasure will turn to persecution if the far right continue to gain purchase in the political fabric of our society.

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References

Reform UK council will no longer support Pride, leader says – BBC News

MPs respond to council’s decision to stop supporting Pride | St Helens Star

Council Cancels Pride, Sparks Outrage – The Pink Times

Protests after Reform UK stops London borough Pride tradition – Attitude