Tax protests yesterday hit high street retailers nationwide

As frantic shoppers rushed to beat the weather and stock up for the holiday, protests against tax avoidance by high street conglomerates took place amid stepped-up security in 55 UK towns and cities.

In London’s West End, members of UK Uncut groups blocked the entrance to the main Oxford Street Top Shop store, part of the retail empire of Sir Philip Green, a major target for the loosely-formed protest organisation.. The London group mounted a ‘disruptive tax-dodger tour’ including Dorothy Perkins and Burton stores, also owned by Green.

The protesters failed to shut down Top Shop or Vodaphone due to increased security personnel and police inside the stores, although a group of 50 entered the store and staged a sit-down protest. A 17-year old demonstrator, Nick Christensen, told reporters he was making a stand for future students and teachers, adding if corporations paid taxes as due there would be no need for massive cuts and increases in tuition fees.

Another Top Shop campaigner, Londoner Frederick Mohan, 21, was prevented by police for entering the store. Carrying a football as a symbol of cuts to funding for sport in schools, he said he’d keep coming back until the electorate abandons the UK’s three political parties in favour of a ‘newer approach’.

In Brighton, activists in Santa Claus costumes invaded the local BHS, gluing themselves to fixtures to avoid being removed by police. Demonstrations in Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Tunbridge Wells, Cambridge, Wrexham and Nottingham as well as Brixton, Islington and Walthamstow in London all resulted in store closures.

Although Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia group remains the main focus of UK Uncut’s activities as well as escalating public disgust, other high street names such as Boots, M&S, HSBC and Barclays are also being targeted over claims of tax avoidance, expected to cost the country £100 billion over the next four years.