Contribution
Well, I was born in the ’70s!
But I stopped getting angry. I thought, “Let’s turn this into something positive.” I brought together a group of people, and we formed Basildon Mini Pride. In two weeks, we arranged a march through the centre of Basildon town centre to the one local LGBTQ+ nightspot, where we had an afternoon of celebration, and we saw the support there was for us in that community. There is a lot more support than there is hatred. Off the back of that, Basildon Pride was born. I helped to build that into what I am proud to say is a brilliant organisation that operates throughout the year, supporting the LGBTQ+ community in Basildon today. While I might have moved on to Southend, I have remained chair of trustees of Basildon Pride, because it is my baby, and I want to make sure that it continues to thrive and that our amazing volunteers continue to be supported.
Why? Because, as we have heard today, Pride is more important than ever. We have all heard about ILGA-Europe’s rainbow map, showing us consistently sliding from the top place in 2015 down to 22nd place this year. I do not know how others across this place feel, but for me, that is devastating. I have worked hard on the rights of LGBTQ+ people, but I have only made a small contribution. There are many people across this country who, over many years, fought the discrimination we have faced as a community to get us to the great place where we could have civil partnerships, get married and adopt—rights that we did not have—and where hate against us was actually seen as a hate crime. We earned those rights. I stand on the shoulders of giants who fought for those rights before I came along, so it hurts me to see where we are today.
What also hurts me is the rhetoric that we hear across this country today—rhetoric that is driving wedges into our communities, and trying to drive wedges into the LGBTQ+ community. That is not acceptable. Much of that rhetoric comes from Reform UK. I am going to call that party out today, because some of its behaviour in our community is simply unacceptable.
Many buildings will fly the progress pride flag for Pride Month. Last year, Reform UK started threatening law suits against councils that were flying the progress flag. It said that legislation meant that only the rainbow flag, with the six colours, and not the progress pride flag, which includes the triangle that represents the whole LGBTQ+ community, could be flown. Many people have accepted that the progress flag is the flag that we now fly. That flag means so much to so many: when they see it in their community for one day, one week or one month during Pride, they see that we are behind them and we support them.
Reform UK was threatening law suits and councils were having to take that flag down because of a minor difference in the guidance that said that they could fly only the rainbow flag. A group of us are challenging that and working with Ministers at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to try to have the guidance changed. But for goodness’ sake, what does it matter to Reform UK? This is a flag flying that does not harm Reform but shows people in our society that they are included and part of that society. This rhetoric has to stop.
We have seen Reform UK going further in councils that it controls, as has already been mentioned, by taking the rainbow flag down and not allowing it to be flown during Pride Month or at any time. Reform- led councils are even taking the Ukrainian flags down, even though a majority of us in this House are behind supporting people in Ukraine and we show that symbolically by flying that flag across many of our buildings.