There was an abiding sense of shock as many people woke up on Friday, 24 June 2016, the morning after the referendum vote to leave the EU, to an awareness that they could no longer recognise the country they were living in. There had been moments of intense anxiety before the vote on 23 June. Many people had feared the worst in the last days of campaigning, following the tragic death of the MP Jo Cox and the pause that it had created in a hostile, racist and xenophobic campaign. But there had also been a hope, particularly in the more prosperous South-East of the country, which had benefited from globalisation, and among the young more generally, that people would see sense and somehow a clear majority would vote to remain in a radically reformed EU. At the same time many on the left were determined to reform the EU so that it would no longer be shaped in the image of corporate power but would strengthen a commitment to democratic accountability and workers’ rights.

But it had been obvious for some time that people had stopped listening to the Remain campaign, especially outside the relatively prosperous South-East. For a while I had been aware of a gathering working-class insurgency – if not revolution – with a strong determination to give the political elites of both parties a good kicking that they would never forget. It was evident that, for so long as the UK remained a member of the EU and the EU remained firmly committed to free movement as a foundational principle, the Remain campaign had no answer to the question of how mass immigration from the EU could be limited.

But the vote to leave, as I will argue, was not just about the impact and scale of mass migration; it was a desperate and determined call that Brexit should mean a fundamental reframing of the ways that the British economy had been organised in the interests of corporate wealth and the financial sector. It was a fundamental challenge to growing social and economic inequalities and a call for greater social justice in the distribution of wealth, power and well-being. It was a scream of protest against the ways that democracy had been hijacked by the 1% who were able to govern for the few rather than the many.