Union banners held high at Pride in Durham this year (Pic: Maureen Marshall on Facebook)
Reform UK-run councils are clamping down on LGBT+ rights—but trade unionists and campaigners are fighting back.
Two councils run by the far right party have announced restrictions on the use of LGBT+ flags and events during Pride month this June.
Essex County Council ordered its 74 libraries to scale back Pride ceremonies.
Havering Council in Greater London gave just three days’ notice to organisers of a Pride Flag ceremony that it would not be going ahead.
Organisers held an impromptu rally anyway, waving Pride flags, giving speeches and sharing a picnic outside the town hall.
Reform UK is the largest bloc on Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire. But LGBT+ activists in Huddersfield, the main town in the local authority, are on the front foot.
They’re organising a Pride parade to celebrate the 45th anniversary of 1981 Pride. This marked the first time since 1972 that the annual Pride parade had taken place outside of London.
“The decision to hold it in Huddersfield that year was taken in response to a rise in homophobic attacks in the town, from bigots and from cops,” Nick, a trade unionist in Unison, explained.
Huddersfield Pride will hold a parade on 4 July along the same route as in 1981.
Nick said the event next month was going to be “big and lively”—and had got plenty of support. “It’s been advertised by my union, Unison, and the NEU union’s donated £1,000 towards it,” he added.
In Durham, trade unionists took the same combative approach against Reform UK.
John, a Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) activist in Durham, told Socialist Worker, “When Reform UK won control of Durham County Council last year, they said they’d remove the Pride flag from the County Hall.
“They also said they’d no longer put any money towards Pride—and they were true to their word on both.
“The Reform UK deputy leader, Darren Grimes, said the council wasn’t ‘an ATM for contested causes’.”
John explained that this galvanised the trade union movement to take action in response. “Labour used to put £2,500 towards Pride when it ran the council—the trade unions raised ten times that,” he said.
“By all accounts it was twice as big as last year’s parade—I counted at least seven trade union banners—CWU, GMB, NUM, NEU, NASUWT and Unite.”
Council workers from across Britain joined an online meeting last week to discuss how they are going to resist the far right party.
One worker from Kent County Council, which Reform UK has dominated since the local elections last year, described the attacks on LGBT+ workers.
They explained that when the transphobic EHRC guidance came out it got pushed through almost immediately. “It’s been really quite a devastating and frustrating time to be in the service,” they said.
Council workers in the meeting argued to form a network among council workers to fight back against the far right and racism.
Racism first developed as a justification for enslavement
