Police officers who actively participate in Pride marches are breaking the law, according to a landmark judgment in the High Court. In a decision that’s likely to have a profound effect on how chief constables behave in future, Mr Justice Linden today ruled that the sight of uniformed officers marching, displaying the Progress flag and turning up in official vehicles painted in Pride colours breaches their duty of impartiality.

The defendant in the case was Vanessa Jardine, chief constable of Northumbria Police, who joined the Newcastle Pride in the City 2024 march with her officers in July last year. The judge said that Jardine’s decision to participate was “irrational”, pointing out that every police officer swears an oath to behave with “integrity, diligence and impartiality”.

It’s hard to imagine why Jardine ever thought such behaviour was impartial, but then she leads on LGBTQ+ matters for the National Police Chiefs Council and long ago crossed the line into advocacy. Astonishingly, part of her defence was that her participation in the march was “necessary and justified”. The judge responded that Jardine had misunderstood the nature of the public-sector equality duty.

The ruling was expedited so it could be handed down before this year’s march, which is scheduled to take place this weekend. According to the judgment, Jardine has already stated she will attend, although she has not said whether she will wear her uniform.

The case was brought by Linzi Smith, a football fan who was investigated by the police after the club she supports, Newcastle United, reported several of her social media posts to the force. Three months ago, Northumbria Police apologised to Smith for subjecting her to a two-hour grilling in the course of a “hate crime” investigation. Smith argued that the chief constable’s participation in last year’s Pride march called into question the force’s ability to deal fairly with someone like herself, who holds gender-critical views.

Linden agreed. “It is not hard to imagine circumstances in which the officers in question might be called on to deal with a clash between gender critical people and supporters of gender ideology, and therefore situations where the former had cause for concern as to whether they were being dealt with impartially,” he wrote in a crucial passage.

He added: “There might be an attempted counter demonstration by gender critical people which required the police to deal with it […] In all of these cases, the fact that the officers had publicly stated their support for transgender rights by taking part in the 2024 March would be likely to give the impression that they may not deal with the matter fairly and impartially.”

It’s an apprehension shared by the wider public, who are at odds with the trans-activist stance of many police forces. Ordinary people are aghast when police press offices issue notices in which violent male offenders are described as women, even when the accompanying photograph shows a dishevelled man in desperate need of a shave.

It’s a scandal of epic proportions that so many senior police officers have embraced gender ideology. They have fallen for the lie that giving special rights to trans people, at the expense of everyone else, is a neutral and apolitical act. Today’s judgment has stripped away that excuse, exposing the spectacle of cops waving Progress flags as a declaration of blatant bias.

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Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She was previously Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and is on the advisory group for Sex Matters. Her book Unfortunately, She Was A Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women was published in November 2024.

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