LONDON — The terrifying fire at the Grenfell Tower apartment block, with its final toll of victims still hidden in the ashes, has intensified a political debate, with many Britons believing that privatization has gone too far and that the state has shrunk too much.

It is a partisan debate, wrapping in the bitterly fought election this month, the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, the anger about rising inequality, and years of budget cutting that is generally known as austerity.

With cladding on each of the 120 high rises tested so far having failed combustibility tests, and hundreds of fire doors missing from buildings, the language of politics has now itself become incendiary. A Labour lawmaker, David Lammy, who grew up poor and had friends who died in the fire, said: “This is the richest borough in our country treating its citizens in this way, and we should call it what it is. It is corporate manslaughter.”

The Conservatives have been fond of promoting what they called a “bonfire of regulations” in every aspect of government, to bolster private and individual responsibility and promote economic growth and productivity. It was an argument made with particular force in the debate over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, or Brexit, which advocates said would free the country from annoying European “red tape.” But as Jonathan Freedland, a Guardian columnist, said acidly: “They got their bonfire.”