Anti-capitalist group that threw custard over the Crown Jewels ‘plans mass shoplifting at Waitrose’

An anti-capitalist group who icing on the Crown Jewels are planning a ‘mass shoplifting in Waitrose’.

Take Back Power (TBP) has vowed to shoplift from luxury supermarkets in the coming months to redistribute stolen food to those in need, in a bid to protest economic inequality.

Describing itself as a ‘non-violent civil resistance group’, the organization is demanding that the UK government establish ‘a People’s Assembly – a permanent citizens’ assembly with the power to tax excessive wealth and reform Britain’.

Its members vow to resist the ‘super-rich’ who are ‘driving us into social collapse’.

The group, seen as the successor to Just Stop Oil, sparked outrage last year when its members threw apple crumbs and icing over a glass case containing the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London.

People involved in the incident unearthed a banner that read: ‘Democracy has collapsed, tax the rich’. Later, 4 people were detained.

Just days earlier Take Back Power activists had emptied bags of compost under the Christmas tree at The Ritz in Mayfair in protest against the ‘obscenely rich’.

After the manure was dumped under the tree, security guards quickly removed the protesters.

Four people were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage after Take Back Power activists spread apple crumbs and pudding over a glass box containing the Crown Jewels last year.

Two of those involved in the incident opened a banner saying “Democracy has collapsed, tax the rich” after targeting the glass case.

An NHS worker and a former doctor were among those taking part in the protests.

At the group’s official launch at Limehouse Town Hall in east London on Saturday (January 17), founding members set out a strategy for further disruption this spring.

TBP co-founder and former prominent JSO activist Arthur Clifton, according to the Telegraph He told an audience of around 200: ‘We have seen food being locked in behind rapidly rising prices. ‘Fewer and fewer people can afford less and less food.’

He added: ‘We will be coming to London in April for a week of action; ‘It’s a massive rollback where 50 to 100 people will go in and clean Waitrose.’

Take Back Power has raised £56,000 in an online fundraiser to campaign to ‘tackle economic inequality’ and introduce more taxes on the rich.

The group said it plans to allocate £26,000 to hold public meetings and training in eight cities to ‘get new people on board from January to March’.

An additional £20,000 will compensate new members who engage in acts, £12,000 will pay for accommodation costs, £6,000 for travel expenses and £4,000 for their equipment.

Mr Clifton, originally from Chiswick, west London, said the group also planned to ‘take over’ luxury stores in areas such as Oxford Circus.

Clifton grew up in a luxury estate in west London and attended Latymer Upper School, one of the country’s top state schools, where annual fees were £30,000.

Clifton’s father Michael, 58, is the boss of international insurance broker Chaucer, which boasts of having received £2.3 billion in premiums in 2024.

Records show he recently lived in a £2million house.

Take Back Power officially launches itself by projecting messages onto the Houses of Parliament