by Patrick West, Spectator
June is a month most people anticipate for various reasons, it heralding the Isle of Wight Festival, the Summer Solstice and Wimbledon. It’s also a time many of us have come to dread, it being the occasion in which Pride Month is foisted upon a compliant and increasingly resentful population.
What began in San Francisco in 1981 as simply the International Lesbian and Gay Freedom Day Parade has evolved into an entire month of worldwide celebrations chiefly dedicated to the trans movement, and at the expense of actual gay people. This metamorphosis can be seen by the original, simple Rainbow Flag having been supplanted by the chevroned, omnicause standard of the Progress Pride Flag.
Most institutions duly obey, especially progressive-run councils with delusions of grandeur, and amoral corporate bodies who will adopt any fashionable cause if they think there’s money in it. But not this year. This June, some are refusing to signal their obeisance.
The newly-elected Reform council in Gateshead has announced that it will stop flying the Pride flag outside its civic centre and no longer fund future Pride events.
In Havering, on the eastern fringe of Greater London, the Reform council announced the cancellation the Pride flag ceremony on 5 June, the customary date upon which the revised rainbow flag is hoisted and then flown outside the town hall throughout the month. This move is in accordance with the party’s pledge not to fly flags other than the Union flag or the St George’s Cross in council areas it controls.