A campaigner who has helped keep gay rights on the agenda for 40 years has been made an MBE for services to the international movement for lesbian and gay Rights.

Nigel Warner, 67, of Barnsbury Road, Barnsbury, is the current Council of Europe Adviser to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association Europe (ILGA) and has been involved with the body since the 1970s.

Mr Warner, who is also a former treasurer of ILGA, said that the very fact that he and others working for gay rights were starting to get this sort of recognition proved how far the campaign had come.

However, he said the MBE was like “a long service award” and said the progress he has been a part of has been down to thousands of people all over the world.

He said: “These sort of movements are not something that any single person can be commended for, there are so many people involved in so many different ways in so many different places at different levels.

“The international movement is now huge all around the world. Lots and lots of people have worked very hard for a very long time for these changes – any single individual is rather unworthy of being picked out.

“The challenge facing my colleagues in Russia and Ukraine at the moment is huge and it takes a lot more bravery to stand up there than it does here.”

One of Mr Warner’s greatest achievement in the battle for gay rights was drafting the first allocation which led to the ILGA being represented on the Council of Europe in the 1980s.