If you want an insight into two-tier Britain, April will provide it. The new tax year might seem like nothing more than a bunch of dry calculations, but it brings with it a host of government policies that go to the very heart of family finances. This year is no different, with 35 tax, benefit and pension changes now in effect – from benefit freezes to rising tax thresholds.

If you believe chancellor Philip Hammond, this new tax year will bring significant tax cuts for millions of workers, and all “thanks to our careful management of the public finances”. But analysis by the Resolution Foundation shows that these gains are steered firmly in one direction: added together, the new tax and benefit changes will enrich the wealthiest fifth of households by an average of £280, while the poorest fifth will lose £100 from their already squeezed income.

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Those in the highest income band – that’s people earning as much as £100,000 – will enjoy the biggest winnings. In fact, more than a third of the £2.8bn package of tax cuts this year will go the richest 10% of households.

It’s said that Brexit will trigger an earthquake for the economy, but for some the rumbling has already started. Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show that income inequality all too predictably rose last year – a society of haves and have-nots embedded by a decade of austerity that’s been heaped on the shoulders of the poor and disabled. The Equality Trust calculates that between 2013 and 2018, the richest 1,000 people in the UK increased their wealth by £274bn, while ordinary families experienced an unprecedented wage squeeze and social security cuts.

But it is not merely the scale of Britain’s inequality that should be concerning us. It is the methods used to entrench it. We could call it the great inequality con, in which society becomes more divided and unequal, and sections of the media and political class ingrain it with a potent mix of fear, fibs and distraction.

“Inequality is maintained by misleading the public,” wrote the Oxford University professor Danny Dorling in his book Peak Inequality, and it is not hard to see what he means. Take a look at last week’s Mail on Sunday, which produced an eight-page “wealth pullout” explaining “how to protect your cash from Corbyn” if Labour were elected, and telling readers with a straight face that the issue of the day is not rising homelessness but tax relief for families with second homes. Meanwhile, the government has lined up cuts to corporation tax (already one of the lowest rates in the developed world) which will cost the public purse billions more in lost revenue than previously thought – and yet there is still no money to help schools who forced to turn to crowdfunding websites to pay for pencils, glue and textbooks.

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This con goes straight to the heart of public spending, and has been peddled with increasing zeal by ministers since the global crash. From George Osborne’s “fiscal rules” to Theresa May’s “no such thing as a magic money tree”, the Conservatives have justified years of vast cuts based on the premise it was necessary to get the deficit down. In fact, new research by the Fabian Society has found nearly half the money clawed back in social security payments has gone on increases in the tax-free personal allowance for higher earners, instead of being used for deficit reduction. It means the government is actually providing more in-work cash support to Britain’s richest households than poor families are receiving. Forget the deficit myth, that’s a dad with Parkinson’s effectively paying the bedroom tax to give a City financier some pocket money.

The Brexit vote is understandably being spoken of as a great act of political deception, but if we are talking about false narratives, it would be remiss to ignore the myths that have been utilised to help inequality sweep this country. These two matters are not unrelated, of course: while economic discontent was a factor in the vote to leave the EU, the Brexit fallout will only sharpen division, disillusionment and hardship for the poorest.

Research has long shown the damage inequality does not only to those on the bottom rung, but to society as a whole – from increased health and social problems, to an even more vulnerable economy. Pull back the curtain and that’s the truth behind growing inequality: a more equal Britain would be better for everyone.

• Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist