Welfare policy and the new social sorting of Europe

This chapter aims to provide an overview of changes in social welfare services available for European Union (EU) citizens in the UK. It focuses on how migration and welfare are increasingly interwoven with criminalisation practices, and how the social division of welfare surveillance is applied in the managerialism of a national bureaucratic system. The chapter describes the reality of so-called welfare tourism by using an example of Roma mobility before the 2004 expansion of the EU. It presents the rise of the welfare-migration-crime triangle, which shapes local and federal government administrations that aim to control the population inside national borders. The chapter discusses specific bureaucratic approaches toward social rights regarding intra-European mobility. It describes EU legislation about welfare provisions and how national policies reject these incentives in the case of the UK. The welfare-magnet theory provides the key argument for digitalised social sorting mechanisms in social policies that advocate welfare restrictions for immigrants.