When "Marxist" Just Means "I Don't Like Them": Why The Daily Sceptic Got Take Back Power Wrong.
How lazy categorisation destroys political analysis and why words need to mean something. 6-minute read | The Almighty Gob | 6 December 2025
There’s a word people throw around when they don’t like a protest group, and it’s not custard.
Doesn’t matter what the group actually believes. Doesn’t matter what they’re demanding. Doesn’t matter if their stated aims have nothing to do with class consciousness, ownership of means of production, or abolishing capitalism.
The word is “Marxist.”
And once that label gets slapped on, serious analysis stops.
Think about that.
This morning, The Daily Sceptic called Take Back Power “a new Marxist protest group” after activists threw custard and apple crumble at the Crown Jewels display case in the Tower of London.
You know. Just like Marx would have done, because throwing puddings at inanimate objects was quite the rage during his era, wasn’t it? Or so I’m led to believe, anyway.
Let’s examine what Take Back Power actually is.
Then we can work out whether that label means anything at all.
What They Actually Did.
Saturday morning, 6 December 2025, 9:50 AM. Tower of London.
Four protesters threw custard and apple crumble at a display case containing the Imperial State Crown. The crown wasn’t damaged—it sits behind protective glass. The protesters were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.
This followed previous actions, including dumping horse manure beside the Ritz Hotel’s Christmas tree on 3 December, and delivering an ultimatum letter to the Prime Minister on 2 December.
Standard direct-action protest theatre. The kind Just Stop Oil does when blocking roads. The kind Extinction Rebellion pioneered with climate protests.
Food on glass. Slogans on T-shirts. Website link shouted at security guards.
Peak kidult activism.
Nothing particularly original. Nothing particularly Marxist.
What They Actually Want.
According to their own website, Take Back Power describes itself as “a nonviolent civil resistance group in the UK” that wants “the UK government to establish a permanent House of the People - a citizens’ assembly chosen by democratic lottery, that has the power to tax extreme wealth and fix Britain”.
Their stated demand is specific: a permanent citizens’ assembly with power to tax the wealthy. Not a revolutionary workers’ movement. A democratic reform mechanism.
Not workers’ control of production.
Not abolition of private property.
Not dictatorship of the proletariat.
Not even nationalisation of industry.
A citizens’ assembly. Chosen by lottery. With tax powers.
That’s not Marxism.
That’s sortition—a democratic reform mechanism with roots in ancient Athens.
Let that sit for a moment.
The entire theoretical framework is liberal democratic reform, not revolutionary socialism.
What Marxism Actually Means.
Since we’re throwing the word around, let’s define it properly. What is Marxism, actually?
Look, Marxism is a specific analytical framework developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It analyses society through class relations and economic systems. It argues that capitalism contains inherent contradictions that will lead to its replacement by socialism, where workers collectively own the means of production.
Oh, and not one mention of apple crumble or custard. I’ve done the homework, just in case you were wondering.
That’s what it actually is.
Marxist organisations have:
Published theoretical frameworks explaining their relationship to historical materialism
Clear positions on ownership of means of production
Analysis rooted in class struggle and economic base-superstructure relationships
Organisational structures (parties, caucuses, reading groups)
Manifestos explaining how capitalism should be overthrown and what replaces it
Take Back Power has:
A website demanding tax reform
Custard
Apple crumble
T-shirts
Revolutionary stuff, obviously.
See the difference?
Actually see it.
The Pattern Recognition Problem.
Here’s how the political labelling works in practice.
Here’s the pattern.
Someone throws food at a symbol of establishment power. They criticise wealth inequality. They disrupt normal operations. They make people uncomfortable.
And immediately, a certain type of commentator reaches for the word “Marxist.”
Not because they’ve examined the group’s theoretical framework. Not because they’ve identified Marxist analytical methods. Not because they’ve found evidence of revolutionary socialist organising.
Because the protesters are left-coded and disruptive.
That’s it. That’s the entire calculation.
Left + disruptive = Marxist.
Watch how it works.
It’s lazy.
It’s inaccurate.
And it destroys the possibility of serious analysis.
See the pattern now?
Just Stop Oil aren’t Marxists—they’re single-issue climate activists. But they get called Marxist constantly because they block roads.
Extinction Rebellion isn’t Marxist—they’re environmental campaigners demanding policy changes within existing systems. But they get called Marxist because they glue themselves to things.
And now Take Back Power aren’t Marxists—they’re advocating for democratic reform through sortition. But they threw pudding at royalty, so here we are.
Kidults with desserts. The vanguard of the proletariat, apparently.
The word has become a floating signifier.
It doesn’t describe ideology anymore.
It describes “activism I disapprove of.”
That’s the pattern.
Why This Matters.
Look, words need to mean something specific, or they mean nothing at all.
When everything left of centre gets called Marxist, the word loses analytical value.
You can’t distinguish between actual revolutionary socialists organising to overthrow capitalism and liberal reformers wanting better tax policy.
You’ve lost the ability to tell the difference.
That’s not pedantry.
That’s basic intellectual hygiene.
The Communist Party of Britain are Marxists—they explicitly organise for revolutionary transformation of economic relations. Revolutionary Communists of America are Marxists—they publish detailed analyses of state power through Marxist frameworks. These groups have coherent theoretical positions on private property, class struggle, and socialist transition.
Take Back Power wants a citizens’ assembly to set tax rates.
These are not the same thing.
Not even close.
And pretending they are—or not caring about the difference—makes you bad at analysis.
Not wrong. Bad at it.
The Daily Sceptic’s Contribution.
The Daily Sceptic didn’t just call them Marxist. They added this helpful detail: “consisting of public school-educated toffs called Tarquin and Arabella, no doubt”.
Classic move.
Can’t engage with the actual demands, so mock the imagined class background of activists. Imply hypocrisy through invented posh names. Dismiss without addressing the substance.
You see this pattern constantly in British political discourse. When someone from a comfortable background advocates for redistribution, they’re hypocrites. When someone from a working-class background does it, they’re bitter and envious.
The argument becomes unfalsifiable.
Nobody’s allowed to advocate for economic change.
Nobody.
Because everyone advocating for it must have ulterior motives.
Meanwhile, the actual substance of their demands—whether they’re good ideas or terrible ones—goes unexamined.
That’s not analysis.
That’s cultural signalling dressed up as commentary.
What They Are.
Based purely on their stated positions and tactics, Take Back Power are democratic reformers using direct-action protest methods to demand changes to how tax policy gets decided. They want wealth taxation determined by randomly selected citizens rather than elected politicians.
You can think that’s brilliant. You can think it’s naive. You can think sortition is a fascinating democratic experiment or an abdication of representative responsibility.
But “Marxist” doesn’t fit.
Unless we’ve redefined Marxism to mean “anyone who annoys me while advocating for higher taxes on the wealthy.”
In which case, fine.
But let’s be honest about what we’re doing.
We’re not doing political analysis.
We’re doing team sports with ideological labels as jerseys.
The Bigger Problem.
This isn’t just about one protest group or one Daily Sceptic article.
It’s about how British political discourse has replaced analysis with categorical thinking.
How we’ve traded precision for tribal identification.
We’ve decided that labelling something is the same as understanding it.
See what we’ve done?
We’ve turned analysis into team sports.
Marxism has definitions. It has history. It has analytical frameworks that can be identified and evaluated.
Calling every disruptive left-wing protest “Marxist” doesn’t make you insightful.
It makes you intellectually lazy.
Full stop.
And when actual Marxist organisations do appear—when groups genuinely organising for revolutionary transformation of economic relations start gaining traction—nobody will be able to identify them.
Nobody.
Because we’ve already used up the word on people throwing desserts at display cases.
The label won’t mean anything anymore.
It’ll just mean “activism I don’t like.”
Which, increasingly, is exactly what it means now.
Watch it happen.
The Reality.
Take Back Power was formed recently as a UK protest group demanding wealth redistribution through democratic reform.
Their actions so far: manure at the Ritz, letter to Downing Street, custard on Crown Jewels.
Their demand: “a permanent House of the People - a citizen’s assembly chosen by democratic lottery, that has the power to tax extreme wealth”.
That’s it.
That’s what we know.
No manifestos on surplus value extraction.
No analysis of base-superstructure relations.
No workers’ councils. No dictatorship of the proletariat. No revolutionary vanguard party.
Nothing.
Just frustrated people demanding a different mechanism for deciding tax policy.
Armed with custard. Like all great revolutionaries.
You can agree or disagree with sortition as a democratic reform.
You can support or oppose higher wealth taxes.
You can approve or condemn throwing food at national symbols.
But calling this Marxism is like calling a bicycle a helicopter because they both involve wheels and movement.
Think about that comparison.
Technically, words were used.
But meaning wasn’t.
And when you abandon meaning for vibes-based categorisation, serious analysis becomes impossible.
That’s where the label gets slapped on.
And that’s where serious analysis stops.
Words need to mean something other than what’s written on the back of a custard powder packet and a recipe for apple crumble.
Or they mean nothing at all.