Over the past two decades, the UK has become a harsher place to live for ordinary people. Living costs are up, real wages are stagnant, public services are crumbling, and social mobility is in decline. Meanwhile, the wealthiest 1 percent are doing better than ever. This growing divide is no accident, and if you look closely, a pattern starts to emerge: blame the poor, blame migrants, and tighten control, all while the rich quietly grow richer and more powerful.<\/p>\n
British households are paying more than ever for essentials. Housing, energy, and food prices have soared, while real wages remain stuck at levels seen more than a decade ago. The average worker in 2025 is still earning less, in real terms, than before the 2008 financial crash. This is not a blip, it is the result of political decisions that favour short-term profit and elite interests over long-term investment in people.<\/p>\n
At the same time, vital public services like the NHS and local councils are under-resourced, stretched, and increasingly privatised. But instead of owning up to these failures, politicians and media figures repeatedly reach for a familiar scapegoat: immigrants.<\/p>\n
For deeper insight into how austerity and privatisation have gutted public services, see The Hidden Cost of Public-Private Partnerships<\/a>.<\/p>\n For years, government ministers and tabloids have blamed migrants for putting strain on housing, schools, and the NHS. Yet research from the Office for National Statistics and respected academic institutions shows that immigration has had a minimal impact on public services, and in many cases, a positive one. 1<\/a><\/sup>See ONS and Migration Observatory data on fiscal impact of immigration<\/span><\/p>\n The real cause of strain on services is decades of underfunding, austerity, and privatisation, not migration. But blaming migrants is politically convenient. It divides communities and deflects attention from the people actually responsible for the crisis, those making the decisions at the top.<\/p>\n This tactic has been used repeatedly throughout UK history, as detailed in Can We Really \u2018Tear Down\u2019 Bureaucracy for Efficiency?<\/a>, which explores how calls to cut ‘red tape’ often result in consolidating power upward, not improving services.<\/p>\n As the economic outlook worsens and inequality becomes harder to ignore, the government\u2019s response has not been reform, it has been repression. In recent years, we have seen:<\/p>\n This authoritarian drift does not make the country safer or fairer, it makes it easier to suppress dissent. When people are struggling and angry, governments that serve elite interests often resort to control rather than accountability.<\/p>\n For a stark example of this trend in action, see Your Money, Their Rules: Why the New Fraud Bill Should Scare You<\/a>, which details how new laws could allow the government to seize funds and suspend rights without due process.<\/p>\n There is nothing new about the rich using division to maintain power. But today\u2019s playbook is brutally efficient:<\/p>\n It is no accident that the same think tanks and donors pushing for immigration restrictions and anti-woke politics are also lobbying for tax cuts for the rich and the dismantling of the welfare state. 2<\/a><\/sup>See research by Transparency International and DeSmog on political lobbying and think tank funding<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s be clear, none of this benefits the average person \u2013 not white working-class voters in the North, not middle-income families in the South, and not migrants trying to build a life in the UK. The people who gain are the same ones who fund political campaigns, shape media narratives, and hide their wealth offshore.<\/p>\n By keeping the population divided, distracted, and increasingly under surveillance, the powerful ensure there is no unified resistance to their agenda.<\/p>\n For an exploration of how AI and data may eventually be used to predict, or suppress, mass social unrest, read The New Psychohistory? Predicting Society in the Age of AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n The truth is that the UK is not poor. It is rich in resources, talent, and potential. But that wealth is being hoarded and protected by a political system that works for the few at the expense of the many. The more the public is pitted against itself \u2013 citizen against migrant, North against South, worker against unemployed \u2013 the easier it becomes for the elite to tighten their grip.<\/p>\n It is time to stop falling for the distraction and start demanding accountability from those at the top. Our anger is valid, but it needs to be aimed at the right targets.<\/p>\n Footnotes:<\/strong><\/p>\n1<\/a><\/sup>Research from the Migration Observatory<\/a> shows immigration\u2019s net fiscal impact is modest or positive.<\/span>\n2<\/a><\/sup>UK workers have experienced the slowest wage growth since the early 1800s. See the IFS report on living standards and poverty<\/a> for an overview of wage stagnation trends and inequality.<\/span>\n3<\/a><\/sup>Tax loopholes, capital gains relief, and non-dom status disproportionately benefit the wealthiest. For more, see the Institute for Fiscal Studies report<\/a>.<\/span>\n4<\/a><\/sup>A joint letter from the Health Foundation<\/a> urges greater NHS investment and highlights the system\u2019s long-standing underfunding.<\/span>\n5<\/a><\/sup>Liberty warns that new protest laws severely restrict civil liberties. In July 2024, the High Court ruled against the government\u2019s attempt to expand anti-protest powers. Read more on Liberty\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/span>\n6<\/a><\/sup>A network of opaque think tanks and lobbying groups in Tufton Street have played a key role in shaping policy that benefits the wealthy elite. See DeSmog’s Tufton Street investigation<\/a>.<\/span>\n7<\/a><\/sup>The UK\u2019s top 1 percent now hold more wealth than the bottom 50 percent combined. See country data on inequality at the World Inequality Database<\/a>.<\/span>\n How Immigration Panic and Authoritarianism Serve the Super-Rich Over the past two decades, the UK has become a harsher place to live for ordinary people. Living costs are up, real wages are stagnant, public services are crumbling, and social mobility is in decline. Meanwhile, the wealthiest 1 percent are doing better than ever. This growing … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":""},"categories":[229,149],"tags":[243,54,404,406,408,405,410,415,412,409,411,413,53,414,407],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the.apoplectic-politico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the.apoplectic-politico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the.apoplectic-politico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the.apoplectic-politico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the.apoplectic-politico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/the.apoplectic-politico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1526,"href":"https:\/\/the.apoplectic-politico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions\/1526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the.apoplectic-politico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the.apoplectic-politico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the.apoplectic-politico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the.apoplectic-politico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Blame the Migrants, Not the Millionaires<\/h3>\n
The Authoritarian Turn<\/h3>\n
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Divide and Rule: An Old Strategy for a New Age<\/h3>\n
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Who Really Benefits?<\/h3>\n
Final Thoughts: It Doesn\u2019t Have to Be This Way<\/h3>\n