There was a time when Gail’s was famed simply for its artisanal sourdough bread, cinnamon buns and speciality coffee – not to mention its signature pistachio, lemon and rose cakes.
In recent times, however, the popular bakery chain has become infamous as the target of an increasingly angry backlash and protests.
These began with local residents living near proposed new stores standing up for small independent traders and against the gentrification Gail’s was perceived to bring.
But the company, with its Jewish roots, quickly also became the focus of activists with opposition escalating into anti-Israeli protests leading to acts of wanton vandalism.
This is despite campaigners against antisemitism insisting ‘the association of the bakery with Jews, Israel and rapacious capitalism’ is ‘a classic trope’.
The opening of Gail’s latest branch, in Brixton, south west London was met by the erection of billboards claiming the firm’s arrival embodied ‘the current wave of what can only be described as late-stage gentrification’ in the area.
Then came the ones featuring loaves of bread strapped to bombs. They urge locals to ‘avoid Gail’s’ warning of ‘a rising threat’ while linking the firm to the ‘genocidal state of Israel’.
Graphic designer Marlo Swann McNair Plowden, 28, is one of the men behind the anti-Gail’s campaign
Posters were put up nearby the new branch of Gail’s in Brixton, which urged people to avoid the chain
The posters featured an image showing a loaf of Gail’s bread wrapped by an explosive device
Now the Daily Mail can reveal one of the men behind the campaign is a ‘wokerati’ graphic designer who hails from a wealthy upper middle class local family which has historic links to the British establishment.
But Marlo Swann McNair Plowden, 28, appears to have cast aside his privileged roots to reinvent himself as a Left-wing activist.
After earning a first-class degree at Manchester Metropolitan University, Marlo set out on a mission to use his graphic skills to help persuade others to align with his political stance.
One description of his work explains: ‘For Marlo, art and design serve as tools for examining the use of language, both visual and written, and its pivotal role in shaping belief systems.
‘When used effectively, they become essential in influencing collective action in today’s society.’
Describing himself as an illustrator ‘for positive social change’, the activist who likes to be known simply as Marlo, has been behind previous London-wide anti-Israeli protests he calls ‘infographic guerilla campaigns’.
He has attended pro-Palestinian marches and was photographed standing in front of a Workers Revolutionary Party and Young Socialists banner at one protest which called for a ‘general strike’ to stop government support for Israel.
Marlo has also taken part in a number of non-Israel-related anti-government marches, including a demonstration against the Rwanda scheme for migrants pushed by the previous Tory government.
And now he is one of the leading figures in an underground organisation called Strapline which was behind the latest Gail’s protests.
In the Brixton protest, Strapline shared video footage on Instagram of the posters being pasted up close to Brixton Market and next to Brixton tube station.
Those posters, which urged people to avoid the chain, featured an image showing a loaf of Gail’s bread wrapped by an explosive device.
The new Brixton outlet opened earlier this month. Other Gail’s branches have also been targeted by pro-Palestine activists. The company denies links to any country outside the UK
The Gail’s branch in Archway saw its windows smashed after it was subject to repeated attacks
Slogans on the posters said ‘A rising threat’ and ‘Avoid Gail’s’, linking the firm to what activists describe as ‘the genocidal state of Israel’.
Accompanying text on the poster also accuses the firm of sitting ‘at the intersection of aggressive corporate expansion which harms local communities’.
The activists describe Gail’s as embodying ‘the current wave of what can only be described as late-stage gentrification in Brixton’.
In an Instagram post, they wrote: ‘Maybe it’s their extortionate prices, or their algorithmically-driven predatory growth model, or it could be the fact that Bain Capital, its owners, have significant investments in the State of Isr*el.
‘Or it could just be the fact that I’m bored of bland coffee shops dominating our urban landscape.
‘Either way, late-stage gentrification has hit Brixton, or maybe it already had. It’s easy to lose track.
After the posters were stuck up, Marlo’s dad shared a picture of them on Facebook, congratulating him. He wrote: ‘Looks like that Strapline has been at it again.’
Marlo, who has removed much of his social media presence since being approached by the Mail, spent his childhood in a £1.5million home less than a mile from the new bakery.
He comes from a family with strong links to the elite: his grandfather, the Honourable William Julius Lowthian Plowden, was an Eton and Cambridge-educated academic who served as a Conservative government advisor and Under Secretary in the Department of Industry.
Marlo’s great-grandfather meanwhile was Baron Edwin Plowden, who was a prominent Scottish industrialist and senior public servant in the Treasury.
Born the son of a landed proprietor and banker in Strachur, Argyll, Lord Plowden was educated in Switzerland and Germany before returning to Britain to read economics at Pembroke College, Cambridge.
Marlo also has family links to Palestine from this ancestor: Lord Plowden’s first job, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, saw him working for commodity dealers on the extraction and sale of Palestinian potash from the Dead Sea.
At the time these dealings were said by critics to have been operated through a colonial framework that systematically marginalised and economically exploited the local Arab population.
Lord Plowden went on to play a key role in the war serving in the Ministry of Economic Warfare and later joined the Ministry of Aircraft Production, in which he remained until 1946.
In his final year, he acted as its chief executive in succession to Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfrid Freeman.
After a brief spell in the private sector, he was appointed chief planning officer to the Cabinet Office in March 1947 serving in the role for six years.
Marlo’s father shared a picture of the posters on Facebook and wrote: ‘Looks like that Strapline has been at it again’
The posters were put up near Brixton station before the Gail’s opened. They were swiftly taken down
Marlo, who has strong ties to the British establishment, has been behind previous London-wide anti-Israeli protests which he calls ‘infographic guerilla campaigns’
Marlo pictured attending a demonstration against the Rwanda scheme for migrants pushed by the previous Tory government
Lord Plowden was later responsible for helping NATO plan its defence of Western Europe. He died in 2001 at the age of 94.
During the war, Lord Plowden married Bridget, later Baroness Plowden, who was a leading educationalist.
In 1967 she published the Plowden Report on primary education in Britain and went on to become chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority from 1975 to 1980.
After she died in September 2000, Lady Plowden was sufficiently well-regarded to warrant a memorial service the following year at one of London’s great churches, St James’s Piccadilly.
Marlo’s artistic bent may have come from his mother, a distinguished artist and artisanal blacksmith who in 2012 helped create ‘steampunk-inspired vehicles’ for the Paralympic Games closing ceremony.
His father is also an artist, a sculptor who also boasts of being a member of a guerrilla art group.
Marlo’s interest in art led him to complete a foundation year at University of the Arts London before studying graphic design at Manchester Metropolitan University.
He has since worked for various graphic design companies as well as with Sky, Channel 4, at Glastonbury and with climate activists Extinction Rebellion.
The bakery that he has set himself against was founded in distinctly non-political circumstances by baker Gail Mejia three decades ago.
When she founded her business in the 1990s it would have been inconceivable to imagine it would go on to be thrust into the frontline of an increasingly bitter cultural war.
She set up her first outlet, then a wholesale craft bakery, in Hendon, a traditionally Jewish area of north London, to supply artisan bread to top chefs and high-end restaurants.
In 2003, American investor Tom Molnar and Israeli Ran Avidan bought half of the business, and two years later the trio opened the first Gail’s branded bakery on Hampstead High Street.
Mejia and Avidan are no longer involved in the business, but subsequent investors have brought fresh controversies.
Mejia was bought out in 2011 by Luke Johnson, the former chairman of Patisserie Valerie and Pizza Express entrepreneur who is known for his hard-hitting views on Brexit and Covid.
Since 2021, the chain has been majority owned by Bain Capital, an American private investment firm which bought a proportion of Mr Johnson’s stake.
The first protest against Gail’s took place after a branch opened in trendy Walthamstow Village in east London in October 2024.
A gentrification row erupted after a number of locals came out against the move and started a petition to stop the shop from opening.
The local organiser of the petition, James Harvey, argued that if the brand opened, then local alternatives would be forced to close and the village would lose its character.
Mr Harvey was said to be a staunch remainer, and Luke Johnson’s pro-Brexit and anti-lockdown views were raised as part of concerns – though Israel was not.
Soon after, however, a number of anti-Israel activists added their name to the petition.
One woman said she ‘loved local independent bakeries and hated Zionist moguls.’
Another signatory made ‘utterly unfounded’ allegations about the same ‘Zionist moguls’ adding: ‘We do not want them in our borough.’
Pro-Palestine protesters pictured protesting outside the Archway Gail’s in February this year
Pro-Palestine vandals daubed the words ‘Free Gaza’ and threw red paint over a newly opened branch of Gail’s in Archway, north London, as activists accused the chain of ‘funding Israel’
The north London coffee shop’s windows were smashed in February and anti-Zionist messages including ‘reject corporate Zionism’ were sprayed on the front
Matters escalated in February this year when a new branch in Archway, north London was vandalised with smashed windows and red anti-Zionist graffiti twice within a week of its opening.
The attacks led to the Metropolitan Police investigating the incidents as hate crimes.
The word ‘boycott’ was painted above the bakery’s logo and an anarchist symbol was drawn near the door.
