A London women’s group has revoked its invitation for Mayor Matt Brown to speak at a high-profile annual event next month.

The London Abused Women’s Centre runs the annual Shine the Light campaign to battle domestic violence, and the city’s mayor is often asked to address the event. Brown was invited last spring.

But after his public admission of an extra-marital affair with a council colleague, the organization rescinded the invitation, a move that may suggest Brown’s reputation among some Londoners is in real trouble.

“It’s not good for a politician for this to happen,” said Andrew Sancton, a professor in Western University’s local government program.

“I think (the ongoing ramifications are) a very serious problem for him because people who I talk to, and just my understanding of how people generally respond to this — it’s all bad.”

The mayor is taking the decision in stride.

“That’s their decision,” he told The Free Press this week. “And I will continue to support the essential work that the London Abused Women’s Centre and similar organizations do.”

Contacted Friday, Megan Walker, the organization’s director, confirmed they rescinded Brown’s invitation a few months ago but declined to discuss it further.

The mayor has never been accused of anything approaching violence. But the London Abused Women’s Centre’s work with city hall goes far beyond that.

The organization has worked to “shift the culture at city hall,” as Walker has put it, since the 1999 case of Stephen Joksas, who pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault against a city hall colleague, leading to a jail term.

Walker has also described their work as an effort to make city employees “champions of peace” in the workplace.

For many, Brown’s affair was with a subordinate — Coun. Maureen Cassidy (though Cassidy herself would reject that characterization). It’s likely that perspective contributed to the group’s decision to uninvite Brown.

On Nov. 1, a Victoria Park tree will be lit up in purple for the Shine the Light campaign’s formal kickoff, and that’s where Brown was to speak.

Per the London Abused Women’s Centre website, the month-long event intends to turn “cities, regions and counties purple” in support of abused women. Purple, the website notes, “is a symbol of courage, survival and honour and has come to symbolize the fight to end woman abuse.”

While Brown’s rescinded invitation will sting politically, it’s not unprecedented. The same group asked then-mayor Joe Fontana to skip the event after he was criminally charged in the fall of 2012 with defrauding taxpayers.

Western’s Sancton sees the affair, though long since over, dogging Brown for some time yet.

“Whenever people think of Matt Brown, they’re going to think of the affair,” he said. “I don’t know how it’s going to get off his back. It’s a bad thing electorally and for his political future.”

pmaloney@postmedia.com

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