STILL milking it! Fury as Fortnum vandals hit top stores yet again
Home Secretary pledges crackdown on eco-bullies
VEGAN extremists launched fresh attacks at upmarket grocery stores yesterday, grabbing milk off the shelves and pouring it over the floor and on meat counters.
Fresh-faced activists from eco-group Animal Rebellion targeted Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, Whole Foods, Waitrose and M&S stores, calling for a ‘plantbased future’.
It was the second weekend in a row that eco-warriors have impacted on shoppers, with stores hit in London, Manchester, Norwich and Edinburgh’s Comely Bank.
Last night, furious Home Secretary Suella Braverman called on the police to ‘do a better job’ as she announced a crackdown on the eco-activists.
She lambasted protesters for their ‘imagined right to bully’ the rest of the public, adding: ‘Who do they think they are? I can tell them that if they think they’re above the law, they’re sorely mistaken.’
Protesters dumped milk over the meat counter at Harrods and vandalised the cheese counter at Fortnum & Mason, which was targeted by the same group last weekend.
One worker in Fortnum & Mason said: ‘I was trying to serve customers and they came and started pouring milk everywhere.’
A cheesemonger at Whole Foods in Piccadilly, Central London, said: ‘They just walked in, chucked milk and poured it all over, ruining lots of butter and £500 worth of fish.
‘They got out before we could call the police. I don’t know what they think they’ve achieved.’
A staff member at Waitrose in Belgravia said: ‘There were six protesters and they came and stood on the meat counter. They poured yogurt pots and milk and it formed this mushy mixture down the whole meat aisle, it was a real hazard. We called the police and they escorted them out the shop. I don’t know if they were arrested.’
A protester at Harrods, Skylar Sharples, an international development graduate from Bristol, said: ‘A plant-based future would see a beautiful world for us all, thriving with nature and life.’ Meanwhile, model Lily Cole, 34, told a 300strong crowd at an Extinction Rebellion rally in London that she had drawn inspiration for her ecoactivism from a recent trip to the
Atacama desert in Chile – 6,500 miles away from the UK.
The protests follow three weeks of havoc caused by Just Stop Oil activists in London, blocking roads and demanding no new oil and gas production in the UK. Police arrested 26 people who blocked Shoreditch High Street in East London yesterday.
Ms Braverman said the Public Order Bill returning to Parliament this week will give Ministers new powers to apply for injunctions to stop protesters who are threatening serious disruption or public safety. ‘The Government is taking further action because this cannot continue,’ she added.