“All these liberals and self-proclaimed ‘revolutionaries’/’radicals’ bemoaning the trashing of the cereal café. Put this in perspective. It wasn’t the sole target nor was it the only thing this group have done recently. They’ve trashed Foxtons more times than many of you have been on an A to B march. That very day they burned a police effigy, in front of a whole troop of riot cops, in a political climate in which their right to protest without ‘police permission’ can barely be considered to have legal protection.

All you who celebrate the first stone thrown at Stonewall but have never yourself thrown one, who speak of riots in excited anticipation but never did time for breaking a law, who applaud the suffragette for punching a police officer but never once lifted a finger to them, and then bemoan a group protestors for targeting a clear and obvious symbol of gentrification in London’s East End with paint (shock horror), in our present day… I think you need to rethink your position. Your ‘pure revolutionary act’ does not exist and never has, and it takes guts to openly break the law, in clear sight of police, in order to send a political message. Try it. You implicitly recognise that with your fetishising of past ‘revolutionary acts’, so let’s just reflect that the cop being punched or on the back foot in a riot was never the epicentre of the global capitalist patriarchal heterosexist imperialist system. There is no such physical epicentre (or at least none that aren’t protected round the clock by a heavily armed state paramilitaries) – if there was, it wouldn’t be such a struggle to bring about revolutionary social change.

The amount of ‘I’m a small business owner and I know how hard it is’ whinging from liberals is nauseating. Yes, you probably (not necessarily) contribute to gentrification, especially if you take that attitude. For many people it’s not just hard to own a small business, it’s totally impossible. The very fact you do is a mark of your class privilege, so cut the “I worked hard to get where I am” bullshit and recognise you’re complicit in, and a beneficiary of, systemic inequalities. No that isn’t me saying “ban all small businesses now!” – it’s saying that a classic mark of gentrification is precisely that a group move into an area, socially and economically privileged relative to the incumbent residents/communities, with the intention of making the area more amenable to ‘people like them’ (i.e. not the present/historic inhabitants).

The cereal café was set up by privileged wankers with no concern for the local community who are being pushed out by a concerted and systemic attack on their right to urban space in which they and their families have historically lived and worked. It’s a hipster fad that, in classic hipster form, they want to empty of all political content, but cannot do so by virtue of a discerning local population who see it for what it is: a classic mark of gentrification. Targeting it is not just symbolic, it’s practical. It sends a message. “If you’re thinking of setting up a white hipster business in the middle of what has for many decades been a thriving working class immigrant community who are currently being pushed out, expect to be targeted.” Consistently targeting these kinds of attacks at businesses – small or large – that symbolise gentrification could genuinely bring down or slow the rise of commercial rents in the area, slowing processes of urban displacement.

Is it the centre of the global financial system, the military-industrial complex, the property development and real estate industry, or urban planning system? No. But that’s not the point. We can all come up with a better target in ideal terms. This was one of a series of roaming protest parties (the intended humour in which is clear by the title “Fuck Parade”), with multiple targets, at which some individuals threw some paint while passing a shitty little hipster-wanker-gentrifier venue on their route. That alone won’t change the world, as I’m sure they’re aware, but let’s critically reflect on the side we choose to show solidarity with.” – Credit goes to Dan Laverick