Before Reform gained control of Essex county council in the May elections, Chris Taylor and members of the Rochford LGBTQ+ community already felt they were witnessing a growing tide of political rhetoric around identity.

But they were still shocked when the county’s new leadership moved to ban Pride events in 74 libraries, scaling back events of “any particular groups or themes”, a decision they said was “straight out of Trumpland”.

“It communicates the fact that we’re not welcome,” said Taylor, who recently launched a petition against the “Orwellian” ban on pride events in Essex libraries.

Reform councils across England, from Essex and Durham to Leicestershire and Kent, have imposed bans on flying the pride flag and holding pride events in public spaces, as well as, in some cases, defunding pride events previously sponsored by local authorities.

Essex county council said libraries were “safe spaces for everybody” and LGBTQ+ books and displays would continue, but added the promotion of library events aimed at specific groups was under review.

Reform councils have stopped flying Pride flags outside civic centres and county halls and restricted council flagpoles exclusively to union, national, county or armed forces flags at council buildings under its control.

Since learning of Essex council’s proposed changes to its libraries, Taylor, 38, has contacted Reform councillors with concerns but has yet to receive a response. With Essex Pride approaching, one LGBTQ+ resident told Taylor they had wanted to attend the library with their child, but expressed safety concerns.

“There does seem to be a bit a resurgence of anti-acceptance toward the community in the area,” added Taylor. “It’s a bit alarming.”

In Sunderland and Gateshead, Reform-led councils have withdrawn funding for Pride events and ended the practice of flying Pride flags on council buildings, while South Tyneside council has restricted the flag’s display at South Shields town hall to a single day at the start of Pride month.

Drew Dalton, an outreach manager at Out North East, which runs Pride events across Sunderland, Gateshead and South Tyneside and recently opened One Centre, the north-east’s first LGBT community centre in Gateshead, said the organisation had been preparing for Reform victories for months.

He said Sunderland and Gateshead’s decisions to stop flying Pride flags, alongside funding cuts, had left the organisation feeling it had lost “money”, “visibility” and “a great number of allies” in council chambers.

Dalton said: “We’ve spent a long time building up relationships and we lost them overnight in the local elections.”

The group has been forced to move events away from council-owned land and venues in anticipation of further restriction, Dalton said. “We had to future-proof everything we were doing,” he said. “It’s become that type of era where you have to watch your step.”

He said concerns within the LGBTQ+ community extended beyond council policy. Promotional signs had been repeatedly torn down for a smaller Pride event supported by the organisation, while people attending the One Centre hub had expressed anxiety about the wider climate.

“I don’t want to paint us as all scared,” he said. “There’s also a lot of righteous anger about what’s going on. And there’s the beginnings, which is wonderful to see, of people starting to pull together.”

Dalton said the political climate was reshaping Pride events. “We’ll probably look back at the latter half of the 2010s as a period when Pride became much more of a party. This year we’re not even having concerts. We’re having a rally in Sunderland. That tells you how the dynamic has shifted.”

Gateshead council, defending the changes, said it would only fly the union flag and St George’s Cross from council buildings but would continue to support civic, cultural and community events.

Wakefield council said it had adopted a more consistent approach focused on civic, national and military service flags, while Kent county council said it did not fly “cause-specific or community campaign flags” on its buildings.

Warwickshire Pride said they had “severely” felt the impact of the Reform administration since the party had won local elections in 2025. “From not permitting the Pride flag to fly, to announcing that Warwickshire Pride should not receive council funding, and this week saying [they] want LGBTQ+ books and information banned from Warwickshire’s libraries and schools, we are seeing hate towards our charity rise as a direct result,” said the charity’s chair, Daniel Browne.

Browne had requested the Pride and Trans flag fly at the county council on behalf of Warwickshire Pride, but was not surprised when the requests were declined. However, when the county council’s chair changed from Reform to Conservative, it was decided the flag would be raised this month.

Reform’s actions have affected the communities they serve, Browne said. The charity’s services include coffee mornings, LGBTQ+ counselling, youth groups and social events, where attenders have said as a direct result of the changes they have experienced increased anxiety, self-harming behaviours and hate incidents.

Browne said: “We’re stretched, under attack ourselves, and that’s difficult to navigate, but we remain here for Warwickshire’s LGBTQ+ population and will continue to push back against attempts to erase us or discriminate against us.”

Raynor Winn, the author of The Salt Path, has denied fresh allegations that she stole money from members of her family, describing the claims as part of a “false narrative” about her life.

The writer responded after her niece alleged that Winn had written a letter more than a decade ago setting out details of taking money from her mother and from her parents-in-law. Winn has strongly denied the allegations and said she did not write the letter.

The Observer said it verified the contents of the alleged letter, which appear in a new Sky documentary, with four members of Winn’s family and four relatives of her husband, Timothy “Moth” Walker. It reported that Winn’s niece said the letter had been given to her by Winn’s sister before her death last year. Winn reportedly declined an invitation to meet and discuss the allegations. A statement issued by representatives for Winn, whose real name is Sally Walker, dismissed the claims.

“Tortoise Media’s Observer and documentary makers continue to spread a false narrative about my life, despite me having addressed them in my earlier statement,” she said.

“It is a great source of sadness that Tortoise Media’s Observer and documentary makers are now seeking to drive a wedge between our family members. The family have always been able to share their concerns privately, and they still can.

“I did not steal from family, as others can confirm. Nor have I confessed to doing so and I did not write the letter suggesting I did.”

The latest claims follow an ongoing controversy in which Winn has been accused of fabricating aspects of her bestselling 2018 memoir. The Salt Path describes Winn’s experience of walking the 630-mile South West Coast Path with Moth, after the couple lost their home in Wales, and Moth was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

An investigation by the Observer presented legal documents and witnesses who alleged that the couple lost their home after Winn took out a private mortgage to repay tens of thousands of pounds she was alleged to have taken from her employer. The couple’s account that long-distance walking reversed Moth’s symptoms has also been questioned by medical experts.

In the latest allegation, Winn’s niece claims that Winn typed a letter confessing that she had taken £25,000 from her husband’s parents after getting into financial difficulty. The alleged incident is said to have happened around the same time that Winn was accused of taking £67,000 from her employer in 2008. In a July statement, Winn said: “Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.”

The Observer reported that the letter was addressed to Winn’s sister and states: “Please don’t look any further for the money. I’ve taken it. All of it. I have to ask you not to take things any further with the bank, but tell them it was just a mistake … I have a police record and should this go any further I will go to prison this time.

“In a mid panic when the mortgage was threatening to foreclose, I transferred £25,000 from Tim’s mum and dad’s account to Tim’s.” It also says that the couple were forced to live in a barn conversion on their property after being left with hardly any money.

Winn is said to have made millions of pounds from sales of the memoir, events and the film adaptation of The Salt Path, which starred Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.

In the statement responding to the new claims, Winn reiterated that her husband was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration, now often referred to as corticobasal syndrome, describing this as “a fact”, and said the couple lost their home because of “a financial dispute with a lifelong friend, as described in the book”.

“To everyone who has read and loved my books, thank you,” she said. “Nothing has changed. The Salt Path remains my honest recollection of the time when we lost our house and found hope on the coast path.”