Thursday 26 February 2026 was truly a monumental moment in British politics. One of the few moments when the party’s representing billionaire lobbyists and donors failed to win a UK by-election. A moment when people united behind a candidate that is genuinely one of them and who wants to do their best for them. Not a charlatan. Not a wolf dressed as a lamb. Not someone shipped in from the shires. One of them!
We should celebrate this moment. Those who are not racists, misogynists, heartless, cruel, entitled, or selectively ignorant should shout hallelujah. This is a moment to savour. In a world in which decent people are finally coming into the ascendancy, this could now be the upward trajectory. Going forward, more and more decent people would be elected until the country and then possibly the world could truly change direction and save itself. But you know what is coming next, don’t you? The moment of realisation that those who are racists, misogynists, heartless, cruel, entitled, selectively ignorant… will not let decency survive for too long. They will regroup, and like malignant spirits, they will thirst for blood. They will seek to divide and conquer. They will attempt yet again to subjugate our spirit. They do not know how to behave in any other way. Like parasites, they will seek to drain all that is good. They resent us for wanting it because they cannot experience the world as we do.
This means we have to unite again and again and again. We have to be stronger than those who hold our heads under the water. We have to break free from their reign of narcissism and hatred for us. This is extremely difficult because the system is set up by them for them. Capitalism is a system that exploits people and nature. It creates an illusion of riches and wealth for all, while in reality only a microscopic number of people actually achieve it. This is where reliable data becomes necessary:
As of early 2026, global wealth inequality remains extreme, with the top 10% holding 75–76% of all wealth, while the bottom 50% owns just 2%. Billionaire wealth surged by over 16% in 2025, growing three times faster than the previous five-year average, with the top 12 richest individuals holding more wealth than the bottom 4 billion people. World Inequality Report 2022 +4
Key 2025-2026 Data Points
- Extreme Concentration: The world’s top 10% richest possess roughly three-quarters of all wealth, while the bottom 50% (4 billion people) own only 2%.
- Billionaire Boom: The roughly 3,000 billionaires hold $18.3 trillion in wealth, a 16% increase in 2025 alone and an 81% increase since 2020.
- Elite Wealth Growth: Since the 1990s, the wealth of billionaires and multi-millionaires has grown at 8% annually, nearly twice the rate of the bottom 50%.
- Top 0.001% vs. Bottom 50%: A tiny fraction of the population (fewer than 60,000 people) now controls three times more wealth than the entire bottom half of humanity.
- Income Inequality: The richest 10% receive 52% of global income, whereas the bottom 50% receive only 8.5%.
- Regional Disparities: The top 10% income share is highest in the Middle East (58%) and Latin America (55%), and lowest in Europe (36%).
Environmental and Political Impact
- Carbon Inequality: The richest 10% account for 77% of global emissions when accounting for investment-related emissions, whereas the bottom 50% are responsible for only 3%.
- Political Influence: Billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary citizens.
- Tax Disparity: In many nations, the ultra-rich pay proportionately less tax than the rest of the population, limiting funds for public services and climate action. Oxfam +2
These findings, highlighted in recent Oxfam reports and the World Inequality Report 2026, suggest that widening inequality is a deliberate policy choice rather than an inevitable outcome.
For those who seek to overcome this system, it feels like Sisyphus. For those who are unaware of who Sisyphus was:
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who annoyed the gods with his trickery. As a consequence, he was condemned for eternity to roll a huge rock up a long, steep hill in the underworld, only to watch it roll back down. The story of Sisyphus is often told in conjunction with that of Tantalus, who was condemned to stand beneath fruit-laden boughs, up to his chin in water. Whenever he bent his head to drink, the water receded, and whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches moved beyond his grasp. Thus, to tantalise is to tease or torment by offering something desirable but keeping it out of reach, demanding unending, thankless, and ultimately unsuccessful efforts.
That is capitalism to the great majority in a nutshell. Its riches remain out of reach, demanding unending, thankless, and ultimately unsuccessful efforts. Instead of giving up and looking for alternatives, far too many are convinced against all logic to just repeat it from cradle to grave. Those who are not convinced, however, are trapped on the same treadmill.
This all seems so bleak and don’t I know it. We end up competing against our neighbours, friends and family when our focus should not be on them. It should be on those who laugh at us from afar or simply never give us a thought. Unless we become a threat to their system. Then the wheels turn to keep us in the box. We have our little successes, then BANG! The lid comes crashing back on.
What Can We Do?
I am a bit of a fatalist, I am afraid. If something is going well, I know what will come along eventually, so it’s best to be prepared for it.
However, a perfect example of hope actaully arrives in how Reform UK responded to the democratic mandate given to the Greens in this by-election. Instead of congratulating the party and Hannah Spencer on her victory, they chose another course. One much more predictable. But out of it comes a signifier as to what must be done. As commentators have summed it up:
In yesterday’s Gorton and Denton by-election, Reform UK ‘election observers’ claimed to have witnessed unusually high levels of illegal “family voting”—where multiple voters enter a polling booth together, potentially colluding or directing votes in breach of ballot secrecy—with incidents observed in 68% of the 22 stations they monitored and 32 cases among 545 voters sampled (about 12%), the highest in their 10-year history.
Manchester City Council responded sharply, stating that polling staff are trained to detect undue influence, no such issues were reported to them or police during polling hours despite a central hub and officers at every station, and it was “extremely disappointing” that the group waited until after polls closed to publicise claims instead of raising them immediately for potential action.
Note: There’s no evidence of which party may have benefitted from this activity if indeed it occurred at all.
‘This is not a warning; it is a tantrum. A losing candidate, rejected at the ballot box, who now insists cheating took place, ignores the simple fact that voters simply declined to endorse him (Matthew Goodwin). In this worldview, defeat is never democratic. When Reform UK loses, it cannot be because their platform failed to persuade; it must be sabotage, conspiracy, or demographic treachery. Muslims were cast as the convenient culprits, their participation in civic life reframed as infiltration rather than engagement. Fear is repackaged as foresight, grievance elevated to prophecy. The language is apocalyptic because the reality is banal: an electorate making choices in a plural society. But acknowledging that would require accepting that democracy sometimes says ‘no’.
Some argued, including Nigel Farage, that Muslims voting for a woman in a party led by a gay Jewish man is proof of Islamist sectarianism, a claim so logically incoherent it disintegrates on contact with reality. What it actually demonstrates is something far more ordinary and far more hopeful: people voting beyond caricature, beyond the shallow arithmetic of identity politics, and instead weighing the cost of living, public services, foreign policy, and basic mutual respect. It shows communities capable of pragmatic alliances and shared priorities. That convergence is what truly unsettles those who thrive on division. Because solidarity — messy, imperfect, cross-cultural solidarity — is far more threatening to authoritarianism and grievance politics than any minority group ever could be. When people refuse to be herded into suspicion and instead find common cause, the politics of resentment loses its oxygen.‘
Remember, they cannot help themselves. It is in their core:
Nadhim Zahawi: "…this sort of George Galloway vote, the Jeremy Corbyn vote… I said it before and I'm going to say it again, this weaponising of the Islamist vote is a dangerous path to tread for our country."
— Workers Party of Britain (@WorkersPartyGB) February 27, 2026
A frothing supporter of the genocidal Israeli regime speaks about… pic.twitter.com/GZwWRl4wEt
The solution lies right here. It sits in the words and actions of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, Matthew Goodwin and the rest of the billionaire-owned political parties. Simply put, no one decent would want to be anything like them. We must simply do the opposite. Be kind and gracious. Listen to people. Help each other to see the bigger picture, not the rancid scribbles of those who despise us and our decency. We must simply do the opposite to them. Then everything will begin to look so much better.
