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EuropeanPowell Profile picture
@EuropeanPowell
Jul 12, 2022 • 19 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
UK is fast heading towards a parallel of US evangelical libertarianism. Disenfranchisement of 'unsuitable' voters, suppression of working classes, limited access to educ, ruining local communities by savage spending cuts and environmental devastation (shit in rivers/coastlines).
The billionaire anti democracy movement & it's donor network has galvanized +450 r/w think tanks extreme partisan libertarian ideology which has its roots in early 20th century when Fred Koch sold crude oil separation techniques to Stalin and Hitler in the 1930s. #Libertarian
Economists Hayek, Friedman & Buchanan advised hiding their radical agendas in newly formed think tanks like the IEA, Heritage, Mont Pelerin CATO etc as they knew their proposals would not be accepted by the public and bring unwelcome focus on charity status of these think tanks.
UK is 5 mins behind US not 10 years due to accelerationism; an intensification of fatal right wing political strategies all part of the drive towards the evangelical Anglosphere achieving global dominance, it is replete with anti critical race theory & seeks to end democracy.
Tory hopefuls all shit, each one exemplifying Darwinian political system of self interested individualism above egalitarianism. Their 'low tax' mantra echoing key tenets of libertarianism; eg 'tax is theft of property' which is why Tories are allergic to wealth tax/welfare state.
Tories r dismantling UK's judiciary, rewriting Human Rights Act, stifling protest, deregulating 1000's of EU laws designed to protect citizens/workers rights. Holding corporations to account, ensuring they pay fair share of taxes, protecting the environment is anathema to Tories.
My thread on the despicable world of the ERG who will install a law breaking hard Brexit libertarian lunatic to inflict further economic terrorism on a public battered by Brexit and Covid, they need those corporate lawless charter cities fast.
Post Brexit will see the rise of lawless charters which Sunak, Romer, Thiel and Mordaunt are busy planning with frequent trips to the US funded by the tax payer. The ERG was formed 29 years ago, their endgame move is in play because Johnson proved too soft for their ideology.
I don't understand why this doesn't shock the public into all out revolt & why the opposition parties & msm aren't advocating & showing the public an alternative to the dystopia the Tories have been steadfastly building for decades. Post Brexit hell will be unleashed with new PM.
My🧵on Brexit Freedoms Bill & how it will accelerate the establishing of right wing charter cities in UK. This is a monetised coup, the most ruthless foreign multinationals are queuing up for chunks of your lives where you and your family will be customers for generations to come
@AnnAubert3 article on Charter Cities, please read and share, above all understand how serious the threat is to human rights which Suella Braverman and Dominic Raab are busy destroying so this dystopia can be fully realised.
yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/brexit/br…
Your lives are being undone for foreign corporate takeover. Think the cost of living crisis is bad? Wait til Tories set up their Darwinian system; exclusion of the poor from their privately owned cities with brutalising commutes under modern day slavery
medium.com/@cormack.lawso…
'Quasi sovereign units located within existing states, which would be maintained by a foreign guarantor nation or nations establishing a legal and political system autonomous from the host state' @fslconsult This is happening right now! #BrexitReality
pressreader.com/uk/the-sentine…
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Do people understand what happens when a country trashes laws it helped write to protect workers, the environment, policing bills/the judiciary itself? Mogg's bonfire of EU regs gives powers to ruthless corporations to make their own beyond Govt reach!
Charter cities can be good and they can be very bad, it depends on what sort of Govt is in power. Tories are busy preparing right wing lawless cities where ordinance is bypassed on building low income housing, 'Home-rule' on steroids, this won't cure poverty, it hides it away
In 2010 Tax Payers Alliance was already salivating at the prospects of eviscerating 'basket cases like Hull, Liverpool and Tyneside' where laws can be remade for shareholder values while abolishing welfare and moving poor voters to slums. Enter Brexit
verfassungsblog.de/the-danger-zon…
When people like Penny Mordaunt talk of a 'big money pot' for Tory constituencies, they will use it to keep the riff raff out, that's average working people born and bred in those cities being pushed out. A Neo Colonialist fiefdom with its own judiciary.
That's total privatisation, Charter Cities with own laws, eg Peel Group Liverpool, DP World London & other sites already being bought up. Private Healthcare, indoctrinated education, security forces, brutal commutes to work for slave wages in Mogg's 'cities shining with commerce'

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More from @EuropeanPowell

EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Sep 27
A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a designated region 'freed' from the host country's regulations, stakeholders and investors are trusted to 'self-regulate', meaning they can create their own rules.
At one end, we have low-wage production, and reduced employment rights for workers.
At the other end zones are basically tax havens where corporations can both onshore and offshore their profits.
Sunak and Truss turbocharged the resurrection of Thatcher’s free zones and added dozens more; there are now 74 SEZs and 12 Freeports currently being installed across the UK under the Labour Govt.
48 SEZs and 8 Freeports in England
18 SEZs and 2 Freeports in Scotland
8 SEZs and 2 Freeports in Wales
Bidding on all free zones closed in 2022.
All 12 UK Freeports are housed inside a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), the zones vary in size from 38 to 75km in diameter.
Example; Forth Ports in Scotland own 8 other Freeports which are owned by parent company Otter Ports Ltd, the managing director of which is Lord Smith of Kelvin, Otter Ports Ltd is registered in the Cayman Islands, Smith did not declare this in the register of interests.
Both Cromarty and the Firth of Forth sit inside much larger Special Economic Zones (SEZs), 70% of the City of Edinburgh is inside Forth Ports SEZ.
From the UK govt website
‘Enterprise zones are a devolved matter and there is no obligation for the devolved administrations to adopt them’ - UK Government 👇🏻👀 researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05…Image
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The majority of free zones are in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, China has the most, almost half in total. Europe and North America have less than 10%, why would that be? The 82 free zones in the EU are strictly regulated to prevent governments of member states from giving State aid (public money) to companies of their choosing, this distorts the integrity of the EU's Single Market creating an unlevel playing field.
The bidding process for UK free zones took place between 2021 and 2022, businesses lined up for tax breaks and low-regulation were chosen by the UK Govt.
From the EU Commission's website on State Aid and SEZs 👇🏻👀
'(EU) Parliament stresses that State aid should support ecological transformation and foster the development of services, knowledge, and infrastructure rather than providing support to specific companies'.
UK SEZs contravene EU laws and regulations on State aid. When Sunak and Starmer say 'no rejoining the EU', not one reporter in the MSM points out this fundamental component about the EU's rules on State aid. UK SEZs are being installed by stealth.
europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes…
Read 12 tweets
EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Sep 26
The simplest way to understand Starmer’s changed Labour Party is that they work for corporations and not for you.
Read 8 tweets
EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Sep 21
If you are concerned about how and why deregulation affects key facets of UK society after Brexit including environmental laws, employment rights, and food safety, then take a look at this paper on Secondary Legislation - Plus ça change? Brexit and the flaws of the delegated legislation system.
I have not come across such a wilful and concerted attack on laws and protections without proper scrutiny of the impacts of secondary legislation, it reads like anarchists have sabotaged the entire legal infrastructure to allow 'absolute deregulation' to empower corporations profit gain and screw the state for decades.
The Environment (Miscellaneous Amendments and Revocations) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 corrected a host of errors, 72 including a ‘tick box’ that was ‘omitted in error’ but was crucial to enable endangered species to be moved within the UK and an amendment which ‘inadvertently altered the operation of an Article’ relating to pesticide products.73
A wash-up SI was also used to correct the accidental removal by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of the prohibition on hormone-disrupting chemicals being used in pesticides in the UK, which the Department later described as an ‘erroneous omission.’74 The Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments (Civil and Family) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 were necessary to rectify a mistake which prevented some Scottish claimants from being able to file for child maintenance in Scotland.75 Somewhat extraordinarily, The Animal Health, Plant Health, Seeds and Food (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 proposed amendments to a draft affirmative instrument that had not yet been laid before parliament.76 Some errors have even attracted wider public notoriety. For instance, the European University Institute Regulations 2019 were withdrawn. These regulations indicated the Government (wrongly) thought that membership of the European University Institute was contingent on EU membership.77 There were 97 wash-up Brexit SIs, to correct earlier mistakes, laid up until Exit Day. This compares with 4.6% of SIs being wash-ups in the 2015-2016 parliamentary session. Not only does this show that mistakes can slip through scrutiny processes, it means that the resulting legal framework is complicated further by layering regulations on regulations.
It becomes clear that the Tories took a sledgehammer to EU/UK regulations without any recourse as to the detrimental and chaotic consequences we see coming up now in the headlines.
‘significant aspects’ of the UK’s ‘regime would become less effective or legally inoperable... the UK’s ability to regulate the financial sector effectively would be compromised, affecting market confidence and creating instability.’
Apply this massive deregulatory attack to just about everything we take for granted in society, and consider the UK's upcoming 74 Special Economic Zones and 12 Freeports, a Tory initiative backed and signed off by Labour, and it becomes painfully clear that the UK is being privatized, via Zone Fever.
publiclawproject.org.uk/content/upload…
All of the problems detailed here align with the anxieties set out in the first part of the report. 359 Brexit SIs were laid in the four months leading up to March 2019. Those SIs touched on every part of UK life, from haulage to equality to food safety. Very significant policies such as alterations to deportation thresholds or changes to social security law were placed in secondary legislation and the rationale for why they deserved to be in delegated legislation was not explained.
The “Henry VIII clause” is one loaded with constitutional symbolism.
The name echoes the King's “impersonation of executive autocracy”: his attempt to usurp the will of Parliament.
We are told that Parliament is sovereign, 'but retrospective Henry VIII clauses are worrying because they entrust the executive, or potentially some other body, with the power to overturn prior Acts of Parliament: rather than legislation being altered by an elected body, statutes are changed by the largely non-elected, if accountable, executive branch. Democratic processes appear to have been circumvented'.
Prospective Henry VIII clauses thus constitute a fetter on the power of future Parliaments, creating the risk that as yet unthought of statutes will be overturned
through the exercise of the delegated power.
These political concerns are mirrored in the difficulties
that Henry VIII clauses present for the legal concept of parliamentary sovereignty. Most understandings of sovereignty can be reduced to a deceptively simple legal rule: “whatever Parliament enacts is law"
Retropspective Henry VIII clauses cannot change/subvert Parliamentary sovereignty, but prospective Henry VIII clauses absolutely can. 'Prospective clauses bring out an ambiguity in the simple formulation of sovereignty: if all that Parliament enacts is legally binding, what happens if one Parliament tries to create a mechanism by which a later Parliament's law-creating power is constrained?'
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Read 4 tweets
EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Sep 18
This is totally unacceptable, Labour are entrenched with corporate corruption. These figures are astronomical sums, they represent an obscene capitulation to neoliberalism and the predations of the asset classes on representative democracy. This is exactly what Starmer meant by ‘changing ‘the Labour Party, by expunging morality, ethics, and all traces of the left courtesy of Peter Mandelson, and Morgan McSweeney.
The Labour Party’s largest-ever donation came from a Cayman Islands-registered hedge fund with shares worth hundreds of millions of pounds in fossil fuels, private health firms, arms manufacturers and asset managers.
Read 11 tweets
EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Sep 7
Imagine your company is offered several million pounds of State aid (public money) to set up inside any one of Sunak and Starmer's 74 Special Economic Zones or 12 Freeports, you will get tax breaks for the next 10 years while the zones are licensed for a quarter of a century, not only that but your company is trusted by the UK Govt to 'self-regulate' in the zone where employment rights, food safety, and environmental protections have been shredded with 1000s more EU/UK laws for the chop by 2026, any economic or environmental damage to the region will be billed to residents in the zone, all manner of illicit activity is now possible because secondary legislation means zero scrutiny by Parliament including public FOI requests being swept under the carpet, plus compulsory purchase orders give your company carte-blanche to buy up (on the cheap) dozens of business, agricultural, and residential properties, public services will crumble, your company can replace them with their own private services.
What would you do?
Read 8 tweets
EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Sep 1
Grand Commitee - Transcript from 11 May 2023
Baroness Kramer (Lib Dem) raising the issue of transparency and criminal activity in SEZs and Freeports of which there are 74 SEZs and 12 Freeports currently being set up across the UK, initiated by Sunak and fully backed by Starmer's changed Labour Party.
'I think even the Government recognise that freeports are catnip to criminals and money launderers. I would make the point that the kind of people who are attracted to freeports tend to be those who absolutely push the law to the limit, even when they do not go beyond it. We have so many examples from around the world where the players in various different freeports have gone well beyond it. We know that at least one of the major freeports will be under the Dubai Ports World regime, which already has ownership of major docks in London'.
'...but because there are no customs declarations, customs inspections or tax-related declarations in freeports, the normal mechanisms that provide data and direct monitoring and enforcement agencies are simply not available'.
'Why is the register that is going to be put together for freeports not to be made public? If I understood the answer that I got, it was, “Oh, this will all be dealt with when we get to Companies House legislation”.
Well, here we are: that economic crime Bill 2, with Companies House at the heart of it, but I cannot see anything that deals with making that register of beneficial owners in freeports public'
hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2023-05-…Image
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Baroness Bennet Green Party @natalieben
“Contracts at the site will be a commercial matter for the companies involved”. Official Report, Commons, 10/5/23
There is great public concern about what is happening on Teesside, and it is at the moment extremely opaque.

I shall concentrate mostly on freeports, because, as the noble Baroness said, investment zones are such a “fluffy” area that is very hard to grasp on to it. As to what we know about freeports and what is happening, a lot of the questions are being asked by the independent media and the civil society organisations referred to by the noble Baroness. I would point anyone who is interested to an excellent, 44-page report from the Bylines Network that was put out by local journalists from around the country in areas directly affected. It does a great job of examining some of the issues, but butting up again and again against commercial confidentiality and lack of recording. One of those reports notes that in 2020, the Royal United Services Institute Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies submitted evidence to the International Trade Committee saying that “there is evidence of criminal activity taking place in multiple freeports around the world. It often involves trade in counterfeit goods, drug trafficking, smuggling of untaxed goods or trade-based money laundering”.
'If we were to think of something that is essential to the purposes of the economic crime Bill now before us, shining the light, opening the doors and being able to see what is happening would clearly be it. What we are talking about with freeports are huge concessions from the Government. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said, they include freedom from all kinds of usual customs controls, but also stamp duty land tax relief, enhanced structures and building allowance, enhanced capital allowances, employer national insurance contributions relief, and business rates relief and retention. Those are huge concessions. Surely it would only be absolutely fair and reasonable to demand full transparency about who is responsible and who is making those decisions'.
'It is very evident that there is great public concern. This is one way that the Bill or some other mechanism—I directly put the question, “If not this Bill, where else?”, to the Minister—will make sure of what will happen if we create these structures. The reason why people are so suspicious about this seems to go back to an uncredited blog from 2010 on the website of a right-wing lobbying group, the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which raised the idea of charter cities. People are very suspicious. Surely the Government would want to dispel some of those suspicions by ensuring that there is absolute transparency and openness'.
Here is the link to the 44-page Freeports Gazette Natalie refers to above of which I was a contributor. @BylinesCymru
bylines.cymru/wp-content/upl…
Shanker Singham's role in the implementation of the UK 74 SEZs and 12 Freeports must be exposed.
Read 4 tweets

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