Rejection of Rugby Borough Council grant

Earlier this year, Rugby Borough Council awarded a grant of £250 to Warwickshire Pride for our Rugby Pride event, as part of the Love Rugby festival of events.

Following the award of the grant, we were alerted to Katie Hopkins appearing at a Rugby Borough Council venue. We contacted Rugby Borough Council to explain why Katie Hopkins should not be given a platform at their venue. Rugby Borough Council declined to cancel Katie Hopkins’ appearance.

However, the appearance was eventually cancelled on safety grounds rather than due to what Katie Hopkins stands for and the things she says about LGBTQ+ people, people of colour, Muslims, and disabled people. In the meantime, we contacted Rugby Borough Council several times to ask how we could pay the grant back to them. We never received a reply to any of our emails.

At a trustee meeting on Monday, we agreed to donate the grant to Rugby Stand Up To Racism. They have accepted our donation and we are pleased to be able to support their work. Warwickshire Pride is an anti-racist organisation. Warwickshire Pride is against all forms of hate, prejudice and discrimination. We also wish to point out that there is a difference between free speech and hate speech. We stand in solidarity with Rugby Stand up to Racism, who led the campaign to have Katie Hopkins’ appearance cancelled.

We are extremely disappointed that Rugby Borough Council chose to ignore concerns raised around racism, transphobia, Islamophobia, and ableism. It is also disappointing that Rugby Borough Council chose to ignore our emails asking how we could repay the grant. Having a history of working positively with Rugby Borough Council, it is unfortunate they now choose to treat the local LGBTQ+ charity in this way. We call on them to engage positively and do better.

We hope that the donation to Rugby Stand up to Racism aids their work and we thank them for all they do.