Harlow Reform ask council to “look again” at Pride event in Harvey Centre
Communities / Sun 21st Sep 2025 at 08:25am
THE REFORM Party in Harlow has asked Harlow Council to “look again” at a Pride event set to take place in Harvey Centre next month.
The Harvey Centre is hosting the event on Saturday October 11th (see news item below).
Soon after, Reform UK published the following message on their Facebook page.
“The council-owned Harvey Centre is promoting a so-called “Pride” fun day with face painting and stilt walkers….Pride describes its activities as “promoting visibility and acceptance for diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.
“Does this seem age appropriate to young children”
“We would ask the council and Harvey Centre to think again”.
The Interim Vice-Chair of Harlow Reform UK, Scott Hegley later told YH:
“When held on the public estate, we do believe there is a balance to be struck in how events such as this, being chiefly concerned with gender and sexual identity, are marketed and that safeguards are in place to ensure that their objectives and delivery are age-appropriate”.
The Harvey Centre has been hosting an event since 2023.
Held just near the Cineworld, the event has become a hub for all communities to come together.
Organisations such as West Essex Mind, Samaritans, Heart Animal Rescue, Harlow Amateur Theatre Society, Essex Police, to name just a few have been involved and had stalls.
To be clear, this is a Pride event at the Harvey Centre.
Harlow and West Essex Pride have organised what may well be a much larger event at Passmores Academy on Saturday October 18th.
We will be approaching a number of organisations for their response over the coming days.
David Forman
2025-09-21 08:32:58
The aim of the event is "promoting visibility and acceptance for diverse sexual orientations and gender identities." It's about respecting diversity. All Reform UK have to offer is bigotry and division.
Paul
2025-09-21 08:48:04
How narrow minded of them. If it’s not your thing (like it’s not mine) don’t go. Just be happy for people god damn.
Jason Fryer
2025-09-21 08:55:29
Reform tick a lot of boxes for me - BUT NOT as a party I can totally align with being a gay man. This is just a fun day for anyone that wants to go to it. This just shows how narrow minded this party may be if in power and it worries me what will happen if in power
Paul Fagan
2025-09-21 09:24:39
Sad
Tony Venour
2025-09-21 09:52:20
The majority of decent people do not such events to take place. Blokes dressed in tiny women's costumes promoting their way of life. Not appropriate at all!
Jennifer Steadman
2025-09-21 10:25:56
I'd be very interested to know how many children actually take notice of what the event is really about or whether they just enjoy the bright colours, the fun events & the fact that they are in a safe environment where people are enjoying themselves. I wonder if Reform would prefer if children were banned from Pride events? At what age would they like the 'exclusion' to be from? Newborn, 5yrs, teen years? Surely, the values of love, kindness, acceptance, inclusion & fairness are values we should be exposing our children to more often & at a younger age? There is so much hatred in the world that the younger we let them see that everyone deserves to love & to be loved the better this world can become. As someone who has taken part in the Harlow Pride events for the last 2 years as a stall holder, I am both saddened & sickened that Reform are taking such a stance against a love, acceptance & inclusion community event.
Mr George
2025-09-21 10:57:44
Reform in a nutshell and this is a taste of the future. Reform values are MP's with dodgy ideals.. James McMurdock was done for assault of a girlfriend, Garry Sutherland for kicking a dog who also thinks David Ike should be taken seriously, silly amounts of MP's with out and out racist social media posts and of course, a high number of criminals who are party members. But women or men celebrating their sexuality? Oooh, a step too far for Reform it seems. People in the UK deserve better people, from all parties.
Guy Flegman
2025-09-21 12:34:32
I seem to remember Ronald McDonald and friends got cancelled because they were deemed to be enticing children into a negative lifestyle.
Nick Thorpe
2025-09-21 12:40:46
I passed through last year's event at the Harvey Centre and didn't see anything that was unsuitable for the general public. I'm much more concerned by this kind of divisive nonsense from Reform.
Jamie
2025-09-21 13:18:09
Tony - it's very clear from these comments that you're not in the majority at all. You also clearly haven't been to the previous Harlow Pride events. It's mostly charity stalls and promoting local musicians and artists.
Jo
2025-09-21 14:22:44
Drag is offensive womanface. Anyone who wants to promote anything sexual to little children needs their hard drive checking.
Mr George
2025-09-21 14:26:58
Offensive womanface? That made me laugh out loud! Oh dear, best stop all Christmas pantos then! Pride never promotes anything sexual to little children. All lies. Jo, you are part of the problem.
Jo
2025-09-21 14:32:55
.Pride describes its activities as “promoting visibility and acceptance for diverse SEXUAL orientations and gender identities.
Daisy
2025-09-21 14:39:09
Reform supporters, you are just bitterness and hate - All because you and your families have so little to offer this country. The irony is that your primitive and uneducated belief systems have so much in common with many of the people who are arriving on our beaches - They beat up their women, hate gays and on and on - Once you get to know each other in the benefits office, you’ll probably be having each others kids.
AB
2025-09-21 15:46:11
Well said Daisy.
Mr George
2025-09-21 17:05:52
Jo, you wrote "promoting visibility and acceptance for diverse SEXUAL orientations and gender identities". I still don't see why you say Pride promotes anything to 'little children' as you accused them of doing. Are you making it up?
Seamus
2025-09-21 19:17:53
I did have a dry smile at the claim of "Hundreds flocked to wonderfull pride event at the Harvey centre". If your counting skills allow you to count people going to and from their cars in the car park and going to use the only toilets in the harvey centre as attendee's of pride, then you too might need some new counting skills. If you dare say anything however then the left tell you to shut up and you are a biggot for daring to have a different view to them because you are not allowed to have a view too. Personally I'd be asking about the organisational capabilities of the event given they had the whole month of June to celebrate.
Cal
2025-09-22 08:23:23
I was at the event last year, it was perfectly appropriate for all ages, everyone had fun celebrating diversity and just having something to do for once in this town. Reform like to pretend they have an issue with safeguarding but its just thinly veiled bigotry. Why is it people have issues with drag queens but not the christmas pantos that traditionally feature a man in drag making innuendos?
Leave a Comment Below:
18 Comments for Harlow Reform ask council to “look again” at Pride event in Harvey Centre: