Pride in Surrey, Safeguarding & Julie Bindel

[Tristan]

I live in Guildford, very close to where Pride in Surrey happens, and where this happened on Saturday: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/0 ... eguarding/

I’m staggered this organisation is still carrying on under the same name with many of the same people. The founder and until very recently CEO, and his partner, both key figures, have been jailed for child rape this year. That should be the end of it. You can’t “rebuild trust” in that situation. They should have shut it down and started something new with different people.

Surrey County Council have at least pulled funding and cut ties, which is something. But the more important question is how it got this far. Multiple whistleblowers raised concerns for years, and were ignored. Both the council and Surrey Police looked the other way, and in Ireland’s case it seems clear his cosy relationship with the police provided cover. This isn’t some minor slip-up. It’s exactly the sort of institutional failure we’ve seen again and again in other abuse scandals, where “community leaders” are treated as untouchable and anyone raising alarm bells is sidelined.

Then we get to the Bindel incident. A lesbian feminist journalist, who has been talking about safeguarding and women’s rights for decades, asks questions and the local MP has her thrown out. That’s extraordinary. It tells you the instinct is still to protect the brand, shut down scrutiny, and silence the awkward questions rather than confront what went wrong.

More generally, I think this all underlines why public bodies like the police, fire service, ambulance, etc. shouldn’t be involved in “social justice” type work at all. Their core job is to stop crime, put out fires, treat injured people etc. That’s where the focus should be. The more they get entangled in campaigns and “community engagement” of this sort, the more blurred the boundaries become, and the harder it is to hold them accountable when things go wrong.

Strip away the rainbow branding and the corporate fluff and what you’re left with here is very old-fashioned institutional cowardice.

[Martin Y]

Paywalled, so I don't know what organisation this is about, nor what the journalist was thrown out of.

[Tristan]

Paywalled, so I don't know what organisation this is about, nor what the journalist was thrown out of.

Non-paywalled version: https://archive.ph/2025.09.07-202020/ht ... eguarding/

[Tristan]

More background here: https://unherd.com/2025/08/did-pride-pr ... -predator/

[IvanV]

Pride in Surrey is an annual LGBTQ+ carnival type event Guildford. Surrey Pride is the organisation that arranges it. Here is a BBC article from July. It says

Surrey County Council (SCC) has withdrawn its official support for the county's Pride event.

In a statement, the authority said it did not believe Pride In Surrey to be "truly representative" of the whole LGBTQ+ community, after it said "concerns" had been raised.

It goes on to imply there has been an exchange of brickbats where Surrey CC is saying, you, SP, need to reform yourselves properly (as Tristan implies is required). But SP is saying, we're fine, you're getting a bit homophobic.

Unfortunately the more recent news Tristan refers seem to be only available in The Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and from Bindel herself. I'd trust neither of the newspapers in such an area of news. And I'd rather have a 3rd party report.

But in brief summary, Bindel seems to have been ejected from the Pride event at the behest of the MP for asking about safeguarding shortcomings.

Unfortunately local reporters being kicked out and otherwise harassed for revealing the shortcomings of politicians at a local level is a common thing these days. It's a consequence of the near death of the local press, and the politicians' discovery they can get away with it. And no corner of the political spectrum has ever had a monopoly on misbehaviour, if that is what we are witnessing.

[bob sterman]

Unfortunately the more recent news Tristan refers seem to be only available in The Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and from Bindel herself. I'd trust neither of the newspapers in such an area of news. And I'd rather have a 3rd party report.

BBC report of the recent incident here...

Campaigner embroiled in row with Pride organisers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czjvdym7y8ko

[Tristan]

And another article from Bindel on it here: https://archive.ph/2025.09.09-060517/ht ... cancelled/