Why The United Kingdom Is Shoplifting Its Way Out of Poverty
Once before, when foodbanks didn’t exist, it was so easy to ignore the scale of the problem, but in thirteen years of the Conservatives in charge of our affairs, we are forced to reckon with the might of extreme capitalism like never before. Boarded up shops, council estates reeking of filth and disrepair, Britain in 2023 looks more Dickensian than the late 19th century version depicted by one of the greatest writers ever. And the unique problem of a developed and wealthy country with its citizens mired in grotesque economic difficulty, has given rise to a new problem: shoplifting. In the heads of most white folk in Blighty, shoplifting was the behaviour of Black people; the Romanians, the Kosovans, the Poles; the Pakistani, the Bengalis and the other but not the natives.
The likes of Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, ASDA, Morrison’s, Waitrose with LIDL and ALDI, make billions of pounds in revenue. While I am prepared to admit that Brexit has forced these firms to find creative ways of getting stock into the country, their vast profits have shown no signs of abating, much to chagrin of the newly immiserated Brit. This extraordinary circumstance into which we have all been plunged has now made shoplifting a very attractive pastime. Imagine you’re a security staff at a supermarket where you have been programmed to pay attention to the people of colour and those who don’t look Anglo-Saxon, only to discover that the main culprits are actually those least expected to steal.
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