‘To be fair – margarine was a French invention… although they probably don’t know that...’

The National Trust regularly finds itself in the right-wing firing line, as anti-woke insurgents attempt to present it as some kind of dangerously radical cake-and-countryside organisation.

This week, the cakes that Europe’s largest conservation charity serves in its hundreds of tearooms across the country, have literally been under attack.

The rant was initiated by the Daily Mail, which ran an ‘exclusive’ on the National Trust’s use of vegetable-based spread instead of butter in its scones. Customers are, according to the newspaper, complaining that the new scones taste like ‘dry biscuits.’

GB News, an especially vocal National Trust critic, having ran a news bulletin earlier this year on the ‘woke National Trust being compared to ‘North Korea’ over ‘undemocratic’ voting system,’ naturally leapt on the story.  

During a debate entitled ‘Protect Our British Scone Heritage,’ presenter Dawn Neeson shared her disgust at how the scones in National Trust cafes have ‘gone vegan without telling anyone.’

“Why should everyone be vegan just because a tiny majority in the country are?” she asked guest Ben Habib, the deputy leader of Reform UK, who replied:

“The National Trust is famously woke, they hate the expression woke.” Habib continued that the charity has “embraced this promotion of minorities again…., bemoaning that they are “pro-BML” and arguing that they “hold the heritage of the United Kingdom in contempt.”

Needless to say, the assault on the Trust’s scones attracted ridicule, with a ‘wokesconegate’ hashtag trending.

“Anyone who bakes regularly would probably opt for margarine rather than butter. It gives you a softer, more open bake, especially for sponges.,” wrote on X user.

Celia Richardson, the charity’s director of communications, joined the mockery, writing on X:

“GB News claims the National Trust ‘holds our heritage in contempt,’ over #wokesconegate. But margarine (which we’ve used in scones for decades) has been part of UK heritage since at least WW2. And am I alone in remembering Bruce Forsyth’s Stork SB challenge? Classic heritage TV!”

The fact that margarine was a creation of the French and not the British was also pointed out.

“TBF – margarine was a French invention… although they probably don’t know that…” said one bemused onlooker.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward

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