Sorry vegans, you can't just spend your way to paradise – so don't let Taylor Swift tell you otherwise

Most companies selling vegan food and fashion still profit from animal exploitation. They want to cash in on the growth of vegan lifestyles, and it's up to you to stop them

Outsiders still think that veganism is radical, but it’s only when you are inside the community that you see how consumerist many vegans have become. As chain after chain – and even major brands such as the musician Taylor Swift – try to cash in on veganism’s growth, plant-chompers now seem to believe that we can simply spend our way to animal liberation. They say all we have to do is descend on supermarkets and restaurant chains, stuff our trolleys and tummies with vegan products and – tada! – the human race will suddenly decide to stop exploiting animals.

But that is the stuff of fairy tales: you don’t end exploitation by handing your money to the exploiters. All you do is bankroll further exploitation.

Take Burger King’s plant-based "Impossible Whopper" burger. Many vegans dream that this sort of product will encourage meat eaters to stop eating meat. A nice fantasy but the objective facts tell the true story. Burger King bosses say that, since they launched the plant-based meal, meat eaters are continuing to buy beef burgers. The only difference is that now vegans and vegetarians are starting to come through the doors too. They have simply widened their customer base, not changed habits or spending choices.

They've said it themselves. “We’re not seeing guests swap the original Whopper for the Impossible Whopper. We’re seeing that it’s attracting new guests,” admitted José Cil, CEO of Burger King's parent company. These burger bosses can’t believe their luck: a movement that should be doing all it can to put their cow-murdering racket out of business is now pouring through its doors and handing over its money.

It’s the same with the Greggs vegan sausage roll. The chain enjoyed a 58 per cent rise in profits and a surge in customer numbers when it was launched. But if customers were simply switching from the meat to the plant-based sausage roll, it seems obvious to me that profits would have stayed much the same.

Vegans are not the only community being seduced by this “woke-washing”. Marks & Spencer launched an LGBT sandwich; Pepsi co-opted the imagery of the Black Lives Matter protests.

Vegans rightly scoff when meat eaters talk about “humane slaughter” of animals for food, but it’s just as naive and oxymoronic to talk about “ethical capitalism”. Are we to believe that Burger King and KFC have a special vegan till into which they put our money, only to invest it in animal love? No, the core business of these corporations is animal slaughter for food. By financially supporting them, all vegans are doing is funding their ability to continue to operate in a market we fundamentally object to.

Perhaps the sudden popularity of the vegan lifestyle has gone to our heads. Well, now it's time to wake up. The "Impossible Whopper" was tested on animals; the "Imposter Burger" is sold by KFC, described by the writer Jonathan Safran Foer, in his wonderful book Eating Animals, as “arguably the company that has increased the sum total suffering in the world more than any other in history." And yet some vegans insist that these companies are potential allies in our cause, and that we shouldn’t rush to judgement.

It reminds me of the tale of when an anti-nuclear campaigner and a swami (a Hindu teacher) discussed how to achieve a nuclear-free planet. The campaigner said the answer was to abolish all nuclear weapons, but the swami said there's no point eliminating nuclear weapons unless you also rid mankind of the consciousness that made us want and invent them.

The meat industry slaughters 70 billion animals each year. We can’t spend our way out of this problem – we need to go deeper.