Russell T Davies issues stark warning to LGBTQ+ community: ‘They’re out to get us’

It’s a Sin and Queer as Folk writer Russell T Davies has warned that the LGBTQ+ community should be ‘revolting in terror’ against the rise of far-right politicians such as the Reform party.

Russell T Davies, best known for his work on the BBC’s long-running sci-fi show Doctor Who, as well as queer classics like It’s a Sin (starring Olly Alexander) and groundbreaking 90s show Queer as Folk, is no stranger to warning of issues beyond the TV screen.

Speaking to Big Issue to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Cucumber (another of his seminal series), Davies discussed the rise of far right politics in the UK –in particular, Nigel Farage’s Reform party – and what the queer community should be doing in response.

“It’s funny. WhenQueer as Folkcame out in 1999, if you’d said, what will gay rights be like in 2025, we’d have said, ‘Oh, it will all be marvellous. It’ll be sunshine and skipping down the street, hand in hand – gays, queers, lesbians, everyone,’” he told the publication.

“And look at where we are. Things got better. But now things are rapidly and urgently getting worse. What happens in America always happens here –and as we look down the barrel of a Reform government, we, the gay community, queer community, should be revolting in terror and anger and action.”

The Reform party, led by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, has a hard stance on LGBTQ+ issues, as does Republican President Donald Trump.

Davies continued that the LGBTQ+ community today should harness “the anger of the past”, as exemplified in It’s a Sin‘s fight for queer liberation among the AIDS epidemic.

“They’re out to get us,” he said, referring to right wing politicians. “The president of the United States is literally out to get us, is discounting us. He would be happier with us invisible and gone, defunded, completely invisible if not biologically altered to become as straight as him.

“That is terrifying. Because he’s the leader of the free world, as we call it. I think we’ve got a kind of imaginary countdown to when he’s going to have that great big heart attack. And the b*stard might not.

“What’s more, we should fear the people who will step in once he’s gone, all those invisible, powerful people who suddenly have a voice. They could be even worse.”

Davies added that younger generations of queer people who have “no idea how they got [to the place they are now]” should be “prepared to fight” for their rights –because, as he put it, “a fight is coming.”

Davies previously stated in March this year that gay society was in the ‘greatest danger ever’, thanks to Trump.

Reform’s manifesto states that “transgender indoctrination is causing irreversible harm to children”, and Farage himself recently called gay marriage “wrong“. In May, the party announced that the 10 councils it controls across England – Durham, Kent, Lancashire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Doncaster, North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire and Lincolshire – would bebanned from flying the Pride flag.

“The Equalities Act requires discrimination in the name of ‘positive action’. We will scrap Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DE&I) rules that have lowered standards and reduced economic productivity,” the party’s manifesto also states.

Davies’ next work will be the ‘tense’ LGBTQ+ drama Tip Toe, for Channel 4. He has previously said the series will “explore the most corrosive forces facing the LGBTQ+ community today”.

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