[...] Blair and Gordon Brown staked everything on financialization. Deregulation of the credit market would allow even the poor to take part in the asset-price bubble. The booming finance industry would generate high tax revenues, which would be redistributed to the working class through welfare payments, in-work tax credits, revived spending on the NHS, and mass access to university education. On the eve of the financial crash up to seven million people, one third of all households, were receiving some form of payment from the state.

When the finance system collapsed, so did this finance-based ameliorative project of social democracy. In its place came austerity. [...] And as the safety net broke, so did consent for inward migration.