This mass selling off of assets to foreign investors will lead to economic disaster. Labour needs to reset the UK’s course

In 1994, I joined a march protesting against how the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – backed by the US – were forcing governments in the global south to follow what was called the “Washington consensus”.

We argued that privatising state assets, deregulating markets, and liberalising financial services to attract external investment was leaving countries more unstable, more unequal and more dependent on foreign actors. Decades on, I am horrified that an approach that wreaked havoc in the global south is still being pursued in the UK.

Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah is the chief executive of the New Economics Foundation and author of Power to the People. He is a former chief executive of Oxfam GB and secretary general of Civicus, a global alliance of civil society organisations