They Broke It. Now They Want Us Blaming Each Other
Let’s be straight about what has happened to this country.
For decades the powerful have squeezed working people from every angle. They slashed public services, sold off our assets, handed tax breaks to the richest, and told the rest of us to “tighten our belts”. They crashed the economy, stripped wealth out of communities, and then had the nerve to pretend it was somehow our fault.
And when the anger rose as it should, they didn’t fix the damage.
They found a distraction.
Migrants.
Refugees.
Whoever they thought the public could be nudged into turning against.
Not the billionaires who dodged tax.
Not the corporations that hoarded profits.
Not the politicians who designed austerity and watched inequality explode.
They pointed at the people with the least power and said they’re the problem.
It’s the oldest trick in the book: take the anger caused by inequality and redirect it at your neighbour.
Now Labour and Reform are marching in lockstep
And once you normalise blaming one group for everything, it never stops with them.
The next target is already lined up. Disabled people.
You can see the narrative forming: “burden,” “cost,” “not doing their bit”, “holding back the economy”.
These are not accidental phrases. They’re trial balloons for cuts, sanctions and more cruelty.
This is how scapegoating works: you start with a group the government thinks people won’t defend, and then you widen the net.
All the while, they’re bleeding us dry on the basics
Here’s the part they really hope we won’t talk about.
They know we have to eat.
They know we have to pay rent.
They know we have to pay council tax.
They know we have to heat our homes and get to work.
They know we can’t opt out of the basics.
And because of that, they let the cost of living rip.
Food prices have soared not because workers suddenly got greedy, but because supermarkets and suppliers jacked up margins while the government looked the other way.
Rents are out of control because landlords can charge whatever they want without consequence.
Council tax rises every year while services shrink.
Energy giants rack up billions while families sit in the cold.
And wages?
Held down.
Frozen.
Disciplined.
Always “too much to ask for”.
This isn’t mismanagement.
It’s exploitation.
They can control our income by keeping wages low.
They can control our spending by letting the essentials go through the roof.
And they can control the narrative by blaming anyone except the people making the money.
So when they say the problem is migrants, or disabled people, or anyone else they think won’t fight back, remember, these same politicians and corporations are the ones deciding how much you pay for bread, rent and council tax and how little you’re allowed to earn.
This is inequality by design
Inequality didn’t fall from the sky.
It wasn’t an accident.
It was a political choice.
Austerity was a political choice.
Letting corporations gouge us was a political choice.
Letting landlords name their price was a political choice.
Allowing wages to fall behind inflation year after year was a political choice.
And now they’re terrified the public might start asking why life is so hard, so they’re pointing the finger at migrants one day, disabled people the next, and whoever is politically convenient after that.
We can’t afford to fall for this divide-and-rule nonsense
Working-class people win nothing by blaming each other.
We win by standing together: workers, migrants, disabled people, renters, carers, and all of us who’ve been forced to pay for the mess the powerful created.
We win by calling out the truth:
The problem isn’t the family fleeing danger.
It’s not the disabled person trying to survive on a broken system.
It’s not the worker who got a few extra pennies by striking.
The problem is a political class that protects wealth instead of people.
A government that governs for the top 1%.
And corporations that treat the country like an ATM.
This moment is simple
Either we stand together and refuse to let cruelty become the new normal.
Or we let them divide us until there’s no one left to defend.
The people who caused this crisis want us blaming each other.
Because the last thing they want is for all of us to start blaming them.
And that’s exactly why we must.
Ian Hodson
