Driven by a cult-like devotion to Gender Ideology, Brighton & Hove City Council began 2025 with two show-stopping moments in the Chamber.
In this post I report from three Brighton & Hove City Council committee meetings spanning the last 8 days of January 2025. My post highlights the astonishing actions taken by the majority Labour administration. In short, they were:
- Labour re-affirmed its belief that ‘transwomen are women” despite a plea to rescind this 2021 resolution made by rape survivor Julia Basnett. Julia presented a question to full council pointing out that the operationalisation of this belief into policy has led to an absence of single-sex trauma services for female survivors of sexual violence.
- Labour (and its allies in the Green Party) demononised parent opposition to gender affirmative schools guidance. Without offering a shred of evidence, speeches in chamber referred to the malign agenda of ‘parent groups’ [they could only have meant PSHE Brighton] who bully and frighten tans kids and seek to eliminate all forms of schools guidance for gender questioning pupils. If these despicable aims were successful in blocking the councils ‘trans toolkit’ it was claimed that “children could come to harm perhaps at their own hand” (among the evidence cited to backup this claim were debunked stats propagated a decade ago, and ever since, by Mermaids).
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The last 8 days of January were explosive. Across three council committee meetings (23rd, 29th and 30th), we saw Bella Sankey’s Labour administration reaffirm its devotion to gender ideology by savaging the public who dare to oppose. ‘Sly’ is a good word to describe council meetings in this town – especially Cabinet meetings. The decisions have already been made behind closed doors. But with the webcast cameras switched on and a stenographer-like local press reporter firing out dozens of live tweets on X, it seems Bella Sankey favours putting on a good performance.
And yet, you would think demonising perfectly reasonable parent opposition to schools guidance as the actions of bullying transphobes callously disregarding suicide-risk was a bad look? You’d think weaving false insinuations with outright deceit would also be a very bad look? And you’d think treating a woman – a rape survivor in her 60s – who came to read her question on the lack of single-sex trauma services as though she was a fool and simply mistaken would have caused gasps in the chamber. You’d think … !!! but no, this is Brighton. It’s just an average day. Ten weeks on from the ‘Sly January’ committees and the April 16th judgement handed down by the Supreme Court simply bounces off our captured council (as of May resident complaints on councillor conduct at these meetings have all been rejected).
Cabinet, 23/01/25
Performance-politics was certainly the hallmark of the first ‘Cabinet’ meeting of the year (Note: moving to a Cabinet system whereby 10 Labour councillors take care of decision making was the new administrations first action following local elections in 2023). The permanently grinning Labour leader Bella Sankey seemed to delight in it all. This was the moment Sankey and her team rubber-stamped the latest version of the notorious guidance, the ‘Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit’ (hereafter referred to as the ‘Toolkit’). Strange, in a way, that the message flowing from Cabinet proceedings that day was along the lines of adopt this schools guidance or place children at risk of suicide. After all, the ‘Toolkit’ was always going to be adopted come what may. Following a public consultation which had, we were told, showed a majority in approval it was good to go. But Leader Sankey couldn’t resist. It was as if her Cabinet needed to enact some kind of set-piece in the Chamber for the benefit of the webcast. ‘Debate’ must precede the adoption of policy (a statutory requirement at committee before decisions are waved through).
The first hint that self-harm and suicide were to become the theme for Leader Sankey’s tightly choreographed piece came when three Green Party councillors gave speeches in support of the Toolkit. Twenty minutes later Sankey had been gifted with what she imagined to be the perfect moral justification to formally adopt the Toolkit (she may as well have said, ‘all those in favour of preventing trans kids committing suicide – unanimous!).
Under the glare of the webcast cameras which document the council’s permanent archive of committee recordings, most local authorities – even Labour ones – would play safe on this topic. It’s a sure sign of how complete the ideological capture is at BHCC that Sankey, with legal guidance on hand from Monitoring Officer Liz Culbert sat beside her, chose to publicly shame parent opposition.
Thus, the prologue for what followed was supplied via walk-on parts played by Green councillors. Its worth looking at these in some detail. First on was Green Party councillor Kerry Pickett. Carefully woven into Pickett’s speech was the accusation that parent opposition to the Toolkit amounted to “the angry voices of dissent who continue to maintain their claims that this Toolkit is illegal and its ends are in opposition to government policy”. She ended with, “I salute the bravery of this council to not only refuse to bow to the bully tactics of such groups but also to put the lives of these children and the staff that teach them at the forefront of policy” – and then this extraordinary claim: “Without this guidance children could come to harm perhaps at their own hand”.
As co-founder of the only parent opposition group (PSHE Brighton), my appearance earlier in the meeting to read out to Cabinet a pre-published question about the Toolkit made me the perfect pantomime villain that day. I had asked how the proposed version 5 schools guidance would prevent the classroom to clinic pipeline that has developed across the city. When first submitted, my question had supplied a link to a Daily Telegraph report on an impending High Court case brought by a Brighton parent. Quoted in ‘GP clinic accused of defying Cass review to prescribe cross-sex hormones to vulnerable teens’, PSHE Brighton had contributed our view that the pattern starts with the Toolkit and ends with a cross-sex hormone prescriptions issued to vulnerable, traumatised, often autistic and same sex-attracted children. Typically this would happen on or around their 16th birthday following contact with Dr Sam Hall at the WellBN clinic in Hove. Veteran gender identity activist and Cabinet member Cllr Emma Daniel read her carefully prepared and legally screened reply with typical weariness (you almost expect her to yawn midway). Half slumped over her laptop she replied, “the toolkit makes it clear that it’s not for schools to make decisions about medical treatment”. As for the court case, said Cllr Daniel, that’s an unrelated NHS matter and “the Council is not a party to it”. Ironically, the pattern, which I had referred to in the question, frequently involves a council denial that teachers, social workers or third party providers such as Allsorts Youth Project play any kind of role in facilitating the classroom to clinic pipeline. But this is palpably untrue. At PSHE Brighton parent meetings we hear again and again accounts of the blatant professional overreach of individuals employed by the council (though Cabinet members would have to take up our invitation to meet parents to know that this is true … so naturally they ignore the invitations).
After Cllr Pickett’s speech her Green Party colleague, gender identity ideologue and trans identified male, Cllr Raphael Hill delivered an impressive performance on trans ‘lived experience’, which apparently gave authority to Hill’s assertion that “the classroom to clinic pipeline does not exist”. “At the heart of the controversy”, said Hill, “was the question of ‘do trans children exist? [No, Cllr Hill it’s about safeguarding]. “Or”, continued Hill, “is this just ‘gender ideology effectively brainwashing them?”. Of course, for all the Green and Labour councillors speaking that day, a ‘trans child’ exists from the moment the child says so. The fact that parents of autistic, same-sex attracted girls (girls who are not, by any measure, ‘trans’) object to the Toolkit’s role in helping kids ‘come out’ as trans and start their journey is of no interest to Hill – these parents are obviously bigots. “Treating our existence as ideology and as a disease won’t make us disappear”, said Hill deftly mischaracterising parent opposition into a nightmarish existential crisis for all trans identifying citizens. Hill’s speech was textbook gender ideology (and worth watching in-full HERE).
Next up was Cllr Chloe Goldsmith. She began her speech with the assertion that families of trans identified children can’t speak out in public for fear of their safety. She then spoke of the “small pressure groups who exist for the sole purpose of rolling back existing protections and stopping progress”. “Locally, said Goldsmith, “we have a small minority of very loud voices who feel emboldened by this and have created an environment where the majority of those who this actually impacts don’t feel safe about speaking about their experiences in public”.
Finally, the moment came when Leader Sankey in the Chair launched what the agenda mischaracterised as “the debate”. She congratulated the speeches given in support of the Toolkit by the three Green Party councillors. The speeches had worked in lockstep to create the impression that parent opposition to the Toolkit was nothing short of reprehensible.
The substantial contribution to debate came from Cabinet member Cllr Tim Rowkins. He said this:
“Cllr Pickett referred to the potential for harm and I think she used, er, potential harm at an individuals own hand. My partner happens to work in suicide prevention, so I was already aware of, um, its actually quite difficult to get really good information because I don’t think its tracked as well as it should be. But there’s certainly a couple of survey’s that have been around for a while – One in 2014 which indicated that within the survey group at least 48 percent of trans people under 26 had attempted suicide. I mean that is absolutely shocking! And there’s a 2017 survey as well, 45 percent with 84 percent having self-harmed. So I just wanted to highlight those figures”.
Cllr Rowkins quoted statistics from two surveys; one carried out in 2014 by RaRE/PACE and another in 2017 by Stonewall. His referencing of soundbytes on statistics (popularised by the activist charity Mermaids) carried weight in this contribution to the Cabinet debate because those listening to his words will have accepted in good faith his claim to have an above average awareness of this issue (because of his partner’s profession). However, the claims deriving from both the PACE and Stonewall surveys have long since been debunked. You will be shocked if you read the evidence debunking these statistical claims. When we realise that only 27 of the trans respondents were under 26 and this was the total size of the survey sample group it is jaw-dropping that anyone at BHCC thought this a great survey to use. With a earnestly nodding Deputy Leader Cllr Jacob Taylor sat beside Rowkins, perhaps the executive officers and Toolkit authors listening close by felt relaxed with this deception? whose going to notice anyway? Far more important was the fact that the ‘magic percentage’ skimmed off from the RaRE/PACE (and propagated by Mermaids) gave Cllr Rowkins his punchline – ‘48% of all trans youth attempt suicide’. Few will ever realise that the lead academic who conducted the research accepts that Mermaids ignored the obvious limitations of his study and misrepresented the data, declaring that it was unfortunate when “research is used by non-scientists in the context of their own agendas”.
[I will skip what happened at the January 29th Health, Oversight & Scrutiny Committee other than to note the presentation on ‘Trans healthcare’ given to councillors by GPs from Sussex Gender Service (SGS). Despite its surprising content, the committee seemed to find the presentation uncontroversial. The SGS pilot hand been launched in March 2023 by Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (SPFT) with support from both NHSE and SPFT.
A full description of what was said will need to form another post. Suffice to say, only in a Brighton council committee could a presentation take place boasting efforts to fast track a huge waiting list of patients seeking cross sex hormones (these were patients registered with a Sussex GP who have been referred to an existing gender identity clinic prior to 31st March 2023). SGS has 1302 service users transferred to the service from other gender services across England.
Lessons from the Tavistock scandal and the robust insights of the subsequent Cass Review evaporate on contact with BHCC. Two committee members did at least ask probing questions (on cross-sex hormones handed out by GPs via bridging prescriptions; on the number of girls being referred; on why only two appointments are needed; on how many young people change their minds) but the SGS doctors could only promise they’d find out the answers to these and send them in. As I write, 14 weeks on, the BHCC Scrutiny Manager confirms no answers have been received.]
Full Council 30/01/25
For residents arriving to read a question at Full Council, entering the town hall chamber for the first time can be very daunting. This may be why some residents choose to read their question via video link. Julia Basnett chose to read her question in person in the chamber. I was in the public gallery at this meeting. Before being ushered into the chamber (and in front of the stares of 70 or so councillors and officers seated at rows of tables) Julia – who is my partner – tells me she joined other residents in an adjoining waiting room. Here, a television monitor streamed the live webcast of the proceedings unfolding next door. One resident who chose the video link option was the Lib Dem LGBTQ+ activist Robert Brown. Brown was reading a question relating to the i360 on behalf of Lib Dem Ashley Ridley (Ridley had been the Lib Dems Pavilion candidate in last year’s general election). Astonishingly, Brown added this to his reading of Ridley’s follow-up question: “Looking at the questions that are coming up I think it’s abhorrent that we have transphobic questions where the safety of our young people is at risk”. Obviously, Julia knew her question would be regarded with contempt by our ideologically captured council but, as a local press reporter told me afterwards, it was unprecedented to witness a resident (in this case Brown) issue a condemnation of another residents question. There had been two ‘gender critical’ questions published with the agenda, Julia’s and another from Gary Vallier.
Julia had submitted this question:
If we are to protect single-sex spaces for biological women we must first be clear that a woman is an adult human female. The council needs to rescind its 2021 resolution, which in-part states, “this council believes transwomen are women”. Does the council recognise the potential harms inflicted on women and girls when policy is informed by belief rather than fact? I think we all agree that in situations where biological sex matters blurring the definition of ‘woman’ is dangerous and this part of the January 2021 resolution should be rescinded. Thank you.
The Mayor, Cllr Mohammed Asaduzzaman, seemed oblivious to Brown’s outburst and had to be prompted by MO (and Head of Legal) Liz Culbert to ask Brown to restrict his words to matters relevant to the i360. But the damage was done. Eventually Julia was led into the Chamber. “I felt like a prisoner being led into court”, she later commented. After reading her question, gender ideologue-in-chief Cllr Emma Daniel replied:
“Er no, Good practice and policy development is not fettered by this motion and therefore it will not be rescinded. It does not, nor did it seek to undermine the single sex exemptions that already exist in law”.
This was news to the women survivors forced to self-select from the only two publically funded trauma counselling services in the city and a typically slippery answer. Julia asked this follow-up:
” Given that you claim to follow a trauma-informed approach, do you expect a rape survivor like me who is biologically female to access the counselling services you fund and be okay with the possibility of males being present?”
Cllr Daniel replied, “All the organisations that work with women in the city who are victims of sexual violence or domestic assault should be offering a single sex service where that is necessary and my understanding is that they do”.
Again, slippery – but also coldly arrogant and cruel-hearted. A decent and humane council would have taken this opportunity to condemn Robert Brown’s attack, express sympathy with the impact it would have had on Julia and listened to her claims rather than simply correct her as somehow mistaken.
Julia has complained to the Liberal Democrat Party over the grotesque actions of Robert Brown (it was rejected). She complained to the council too (also rejected). Given the content of her second question and the ordeal of asking it, the public might once have presumed her interactions with the Chair (the Mayor) and Cllr Daniel would entail some expression of support and sympathy (either at the time or since) in relation to Brown’s outburst. Not anymore – and certainly not in Brighton! For years, our council, like Brown, condemn statements like Julia’s as offensive; an attack on the dignity of trans people – as “transphobic”. If you need any proof of this the case of resident Allison Hooper supplies it. [See Wall of Silencing on X here]
In conclusion.
Sly January shows us that our political class regard the harms inflicted by gender ideology – on women, on children in schools – as either a claim made-up by bigots or simply less important than their own political priorities. Labour and Green in the city are captured (or simply required by leaders to keep their mouths shut) but the cowardice of Tory and Independent councillors is shocking. ‘We’ll be branded as transphobic!”, said one Independent councillor to me (all their good works for constituents, she explained, depend on convivial relationships with Cabinet members).
This being Brighton & Hove, we won’t expect anything to change anytime soon. In schools especially, the monstrous practices that comprise the classroom to clinic pipeline continue unabated thanks to the professional overreach of staff and the insidious influence of third party activists (with the Toolkit acting as operating manual). Ours is a city where those entrusted with safeguarding and scrutiny simply say nothing to see here, move along! Irrespective of the parents who have joined psheBrighton.org (who the Cabinet refuse to meet), or the high court cases in progress, or even the young people currently realising the devastating mistake adults supported them to make … nothing changes in Brighton. It’s business as usual.
May 21st UPDATE: Justifying its rejection of my February 26th complaint, BHCC conclude that the comments made by Cllr Rowkins (and others) implying the absence of the Toolkit could risk pupil self harm including suicide were made “in good faith” and therefore did not break the councillor code of conduct. Specifically, I had complained that Rowkins had brought his Cabinet role into disrepute and improperly used his influence to endorse the Toolkit (breaking 5.1 and 6.1 of the Code). You would think Rowkins, by presenting the flawed 2014 and 2017 statistics as though they were credible and reassuring the meeting by claiming a degree of expertise (which he knew he didn’t have), would give a council grounds to recognise to launch their own disciplinary proceedings? However, taking 82 days to make their assessment, Monitoring Officer Liz Culbert and the ever allusive “Independent Person” (IP) came to the conclusion that “it is not considered to be proportionate or necessary to formally investigate your complaint”.
Similarly, my complaint that the demonisation of legitimate local parent opposition broke the code was also thrown out. The rejection email I received stated: “it was noted that no individual or group was named, this in a context where the sentence which made reference to ‘angry voices’ started with a reference to society – so a wide pool”. In fact, Cllr Pickett had mentioned “the angry voices of dissent who continue to maintain their claims that this Toolkit is illegal …”, therefore Culbert and the IP have conjured imaginary parent groups who exist, not in Brighton, but rather outside in the wider pool of society. Who are these groups of non-Brighton parents agitating against Brighton council’s toolkit (shouldn’t we be informed?). Moreover, the laughable attempt to suggest that it was these ‘other’ parent groups rather than PSHE Brighton being referred to that day sits awkwardly with Cllr Pickett’s salutation of “the bravery of this council” in refusing to “bow to the bully tactics of such groups”. With PSHE Brighton the only parent group quoted in media on the Toolkit, the only group contributing to the consultation on the Toolkit or, indeed, writing to every councillor and Chair of Governors about the Toolkit, I wonder what other groups Cllr Pickett had in-mind? And of course, Cllr Pickett’s speech then handed-over to her Green colleague Cllr Hill who quotes PSHE Brighton’s phrase when asserting ‘the classroom to clinic pipeline’ does not exist; who then hands to Cllr Goldsmith who spoke of “small pressure groups” wanting to wreck progress and adds, “Locally we have a small minority of very loud voices who feel emboldened by this …”.
Based on past form, it would have been extraordinary if my complaints (or Julia Basnett’s complaints) had passed the preliminary stage. The process allows the council to bend the stick beyond snapping point in order to avoid formally investigating a complaint (I dont think there has been a formal standards hearing based on a resident complaint for many years). And of course the discretion of the MO and IP is invariably respected by the Ombudsman. Nonetheless, in this instance we see the council marshalling absurd arguments to justify a decision even if the charade is patently obvious to anyone looking on. However, BHCCs decision to circle its wagons around a defence of gender ideology (despite the Supreme Court Ruling) is duly noted by the public and along with every other shameful example the events of January take their place in the fat file of evidence that will be available to courtrooms and inquiries.