In the UK, a Former Drag Artist Runs for City Council with Right-Wing Reform UK and Calls Migration a Threat to Gay People

Michael Felse, who led Manchester Pride in 2011 as his drag alter ego Ethol Mary, has announced his candidacy for the right-wing Reform UK party in a by-election for Salford City Council in Greater Manchester, in northwest England. Felse opposes immigration, arguing that it poses a direct threat to gay people.

“Gay people are literally under threat because of international immigration as some immigrants come from cultures where gay people would be killed,” Felse wrote on LinkedIn.

The by-election in the Barton and Winton ward is scheduled for April 22, 2026. Felse is one of six candidates competing for the seat, which became vacant after the death of long-serving Labour councillor David Lancaster, who passed away in February after 60 years in public service.

Felse was born in a mining village near Doncaster. His first job after school was at the coal mine. He has lived in Salford for the past 30 years. “I feel proud to be working class,” he told Salford Now .

One of his reasons for returning to politics, Felse said, was a government pilot scheme offering failed asylum seekers up to £10,000 each to leave the UK voluntarily, with payments capped at four family members on the condition they depart within a week. He compared this with the government’s refusal in January 2026 to compensate women born in the 1950s who were affected by changes to the state pension age. “It angered me to see at the same time they refuse to correct injustice for our women, denying them £2,900,” he said.

Felse has previously stood in multiple elections. In 2009, he ran as an independent candidate for Mayor of Doncaster. In 2010, he stood for the English Democrats in Dewsbury at the general election. In 2012, he ran for the English Democrats in the Salford mayoral election, finishing eighth with 3.6% of the vote.

In 2011, Felse led the Manchester Pride parade as his drag alter ego Ethol Mary, whom he described as “more like a Grimsby docker than Lady Gaga.” He was chosen after being “dared” to enter the race for the title of Parade Queen. He led more than a hundred floats through central Manchester.

Asked whether drag would undermine the seriousness of his political activities, Felse replied: “I don’t think I’ll be taken as a joke. Everybody is different, but the question is how we make space for those choices. It isn’t making politics silly, it’s saying: no, let’s have a bit of fun.”

Felse has since abandoned drag. Instead of Ethol Mary, he has created the character Captain England, who he says stands for “Diversity, Inclusion, Cohesion and Kinship.” In English, the initials spell out DICK – a deliberate play on words.

After joining Reform UK, Felse faced criticism. “Hundreds of online lefties on PinkNews attacked my honest opinion instead of facing up to the facts of left-wing councils’ woke projects that waste millions,” he told Doncaster Free Press .

Reform UK is a right-wing party founded in 2018 and led by Nigel Farage. The party advocates strict immigration controls, withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, and cuts to government spending. According to polls, Reform UK is one of the most popular parties in the country, with over 270,000 members and 8 MPs in the House of Commons.