Scapegoating Isn’t a Solution

Helping others has long shaped how our society responds to difficulty. Not always perfectly, and not in every moment, but the instinct to offer support, to welcome, and to make things better runs deep. You see it in communities where people organise, volunteer, and step in when systems fall short. You see it in the way our country has cared for those in need, whether neighbours facing hardship or people seeking safety. That sense of responsibility, shared across generations and places, is something worth holding onto.

Operation Raise the Flag isn’t about improving life in Britain. It’s a campaign designed to provoke, not support. It encourages division, targets vulnerable people, and distracts from the real challenges facing communities across the country. It’s being driven by a mix of political figures, media voices, and individuals who choose fear over responsibility, who stir resentment instead of offering solutions.

Most people don’t want this. They don’t want asylum seekers turned into scapegoats. They don’t want their communities defined by suspicion. What they do want is simple: fairness, opportunity, and a country that looks after people, those who’ve lived here for generations, those building new lives, and those in need of safety. A country that treats everyone with dignity.

People deserve homes they can afford, not just for themselves but for their children and grandchildren. That means serious investment in social housing, not schemes that inflate prices or push people out of their own towns.

They deserve wages that reflect the cost of living. Pay that allows people to live decently, support their families, and contribute to their communities without constant financial strain.

They deserve public services that work. GP appointments that don’t take weeks. Schools that are properly funded. Care for the elderly that doesn’t rely on exhausted relatives or underpaid staff. These are not luxuries. They are the basics of a society that values its people.

They deserve to feel safe, not from imagined threats but from being left behind. From insecure work, unaffordable rents, and the quiet erosion of community life.

And they want leadership that listens. That invests in people. That builds trust instead of breaking it.

Instead, we get flag-waving and scapegoating. We get protests outside asylum hotels, where people seeking safety are met with hostility. The use of hotels is far from ideal, and the asylum system itself has long needed reform. The current government has acknowledged this and is now introducing a new independent body to speed up asylum appeals, reduce the backlog, and phase out hotel accommodation altogether. These are necessary steps. But intimidation and abuse are never acceptable. No one should be targeted for simply trying to rebuild their life.

Now, as tensions rise, we’re seeing vandalism and damage linked to this campaign. Public money is being spent responding to the consequences. That same funding could support a local advice service, help repair a community centre, or keep a food bank running. It could do something useful.

This is not just wasteful. It is harmful. It pits neighbour against neighbour and distracts from the work that actually needs doing. Britain is so much better than that. Our communities already show us what care, fairness, and decency look like. It’s up to all of us to carry that forward.