Once upon a time, manufacturers marketed their product based upon the product's merits. In recent years, companies have been selling not their products, but their politics. So what's a company to do when a disfavored buyer purchases the product in the free market? According to Britain's social justice warriors ("SJWs"), the company is still responsible and must be punished.

Yorkshire Tea is just what it says it is: a company that sells tea. Its roots go back to 1886, and it is the most popular traditional black tea brand in Britain. In 1962, the current owners took over the company, rebranded the tea from "Taylors" to "Yorkshire Tea," and have been selling the tea ever since. The company is still family-owned and has been holding its own against teas like Unilever, Tata (Tesco), Twinings, and Typhoo.

The company is still old-fashioned enough to advertise its product's virtues and ties to lovely Yorkshire, often quite humorously:

Yorkshire Tea has pretty much avoided the modern trend of virtue-signaling that so many other companies engage in, both in England and America, to position themselves in the marketplace.

Gillette is an excellent example of virtue-signal marketing. It first attacked "toxic masculinity" — meaning that it attacked its product's primary customers — and then attempted to create a new customer base by celebrating women who take male hormones and therefore have to shave.

Because Britain is still a free-market economy, although Yorkshire Tea shies away from positioning itself with specific political or social demographics, it has no control over who ultimately buys its products. The free market's effect of letting anyone buy a product, and even boast about the product, is why SJWs in England are trying to destroy Yorkshire Tea.

Rishi Sunak, the conservative chancellor of the Exchequer in Boris Johnson's government, decided it would be good to tweet out that he was making a big pot of Yorkshire Tea. Presumably, with Brexit going into effect, he did so to highlight homegrown British industries:

Quick Budget prep break making tea for the team. Nothing like a good Yorkshire brew. pic.twitter.com/zhoQM9Ksho — Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) February 21, 2020

The SJWs went ballistic. We'll let Yorkshire Tea tell the tale:

We've spent the last three days answering furious accusations and boycott calls. For some, our tea just being drunk by someone they don't like means it's forever tainted, and they've made sure we know it. — Yorkshire Tea (@YorkshireTea) February 24, 2020

Speaking directly now, as the person who's been answering these tweets, I know it could have been much worse. It's easier to be on the receiving end of this as a brand than as an individual. There's more emotional distance and I've had a team to support me when it got a bit much. — Yorkshire Tea (@YorkshireTea) February 24, 2020

But for anyone about to vent their rage online, even to a company - please remember there's a human on the other end of it, and try to be kind. — Yorkshire Tea (@YorkshireTea) February 24, 2020

That play didn't stop the SJWs:

Tories are shamelessly trying to offer fig leaves to the North, like having the Red Wall ex-Labour voter in the flat cap in their promotional video. Now they’re talking about moving treasury offices up. The North needs massive investment & flood defences not tacky empty gestures! — Rose Shillito #RLB4Leader #Richard4Deputy (@rozzleberry) February 24, 2020

Being endorsed by the @Conservatives is not a good look.



Thankfully, other teas are available.#AvoidYorkshireTea#BoycottYorkshireTea — Am I the only one? (@aitoo001) February 24, 2020

I’ve stopped using Yorkshire tea since then as I don’t want to use a product that received publicity from an xenophobic fascist racist Political Party. I got rid of Yorkshire tea from all three of my offices and from home. All staff and other family and friends feel same. — Limited Ferry Services (@Wade73605662) February 24, 2020

SJWs, aka leftists, are awful people. Back in the 1960s, the feminists used to say, "the personal is political." Thanks to the leftists, everything is now political.

To co-opt leftist language, there are no longer any "safe spaces" for people who want to live their lives the old-fashioned way in a free country: thinking about a product's virtues and price point; buying the product; and recognizing that people whom they might not like might buy the product, too.

Indeed, that's what used to be meant by the dying phrase, "You can do it in the streets as long as you don't scare the horses. After all, it's a free country." Sadly, if there's one thing leftists hate, it's a free country.