A spokesman for the left-wing group Take Back Power has defended organising a nationwide shoplifting spree, claiming it was a necessary protest to highlight growing wealth inequality.
David Currey told Nana Akua on GB News: “We're in a cost of living crisis. We've got four million children in this country who have grown up in food poverty, right? And the solutions to this are simple. We need to tax the rich.
“The super rich are hoarding more and more wealth, while ordinary people are struggling to get by. We've had enough of it, and so yesterday, we took a stand, taking it into our own hands, going into Tesco, who rake in billions of pounds of profit every year, and whose CEO owns earns 430 times the amount of his average employee, and we peacefully, non-violently, took the food off the shelves in order to redistribute to those most in need in our community."
He said none of the activists had been arrested and added: “Look we get sold this lie all the time, of trickle-down economics. I would like to challenge this concept, right? I think we should call it gushing-up economics, because since Covid, billionaire wealth has more than doubled.
“Where's this money coming from? It's coming from the pockets of hard-working ordinary people up and down this country, people who work in supermarkets, and plumbers, nurses, teachers, and we're sick to death of it.
“Three quarters of the population know we need to tax the rich, but our government is too far in the back pockets of the billionaires to do that. And in this situation, we're left with little choice than to take action.”
Asked why there is a need to break the law, he said: “The decision that I took yesterday, it wasn't a light one. But ultimately, what's much scarier is if things carry on the way that they are, because inequality is completely out of control, and change doesn't come easily.
“Throughout history, people have broken laws time and time again, and that's why we have some of the most fundamental rights that we have today, and so we're acting in that same tradition.
“And this is not going to be the last that you'll see of us.”
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