It’s a feeling you know well. You’re scrolling, and a headline about small boats hits you like a punch to the gut. The fear is real. Moments later, you see another story calling anyone with concerns a xenophobe. Now you’re angry. You are being pushed to pick a side in a fight that gets more toxic by the day.

But what if the entire fight is a performance? A grand illusion designed to profit from your anger while the real problems get worse?

The Great Misdirection: How They Trick You With 4%

Every magician needs a distraction. A grand gesture with one hand to hide what the other is really doing. In the UK today, the small boats are that grand gesture.

The numbers are designed to be startling. Nearly 30,000 people arrived via small boats in the year to September 2024. These journeys, run by criminals, are horrifically dangerous. The story is visual, emotional, and terrifying. It’s also the perfect cover for a much bigger, less convenient truth.

Why the misdirection? Because outrage is a business model. A story about a foreign engineer arriving legally to work in our tech sector doesn’t make you click. A picture of a dinghy does. Both sides get richer while the country is torn apart.

The Outrage Industry: A Tale of Two Strategies

This isn’t an accident; it’s a finely tuned machine. On one side, right-wing media outlets master the art of outrage farming. They use emotive, often alarming, language to create a constant sense of crisis. The focus remains relentlessly on the 4% of small boat arrivals, framing it as an “invasion” to generate fear and, most importantly, clicks from a loyal base that feels their identity is under threat. Context is sacrificed for emotional impact.

On the other side, left-wing media outlets often adopt a strategy of moral derision. They frame any legitimate public concern about the strain on services or the pace of change as inherently ignorant or bigoted. This approach generates clicks through self-affirmation and moral outrage, creating an echo chamber for their audience. The tragic result is that it alienates vast swathes of the population, shuts down genuine conversation, and reinforces the very toxic tribalism that prevents any real solutions from emerging.

So, Who Are the Other 96%?

The debate almost never focuses on the vast majority of people coming to the UK. But when you look at the facts, a very different picture emerges. Of the roughly 1.2 million people who moved here in the last year, here’s who they really are:

The University Dilemma

International students are a huge, often ignored, part of this story. They help fund our world-class universities by paying higher fees. At top institutions like UCL and Imperial College, they make up over half the student body. But recent rule changes have caused international applications to plummet. This is already causing damage: Cardiff University plans to cut 400 jobs. We now face a stark choice: raise fees for British students, or watch our world-leading universities decline.

The Real Crisis They’re Hiding

This grand illusion only works because people are already anxious. But that anxiety doesn’t come from a boat on the horizon—it comes from the bills on the kitchen table and the undeniable feeling that Britain is creaking at the seams. It is a perfectly balanced view to want to control migration. It’s not racist to worry about a full house when you can feel the floorboards groaning, nor is it racist to feel British values are under attack and to show patriotism by putting up a flag. These are valid concerns. The real problem is that politicians want you to argue about who to blame, instead of demanding they fix the foundations.

And let’s be clear on one undeniable fact: high levels of migration do put a real, measurable strain on public services.

When anxiety is at its peak, they play the crime card. But once again, the facts reveal a more complex story. Research consistently shows crime is driven by poverty, age, and opportunity—not a person’s passport.

It’s a Business Model, Not a Debate

This is where we must be brutally honest. The real enemy isn’t the migrant, “the left,” “the right,” or someone waving a flag. The real enemy is the business model that profits from making you hate those people. The media and politicians, on all sides, are deliberately feeding us a diet of black-and-white rage because it guarantees clicks and votes.

They have turned a legitimate national conversation into a toxic culture war. Wanting control over migration is a valid policy position, not a racist slur. Arguing that migration isn’t the root of all our problems is also a valid position, not a delusional fantasy. These are points on a spectrum of a complex debate that they have flattened into a battlefield for their own gain.

They only win if you keep playing their game. It’s time to change the rules.