Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
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…
unroll @threadreaderapp
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'

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with EuropeanPowell

EuropeanPowell Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @EuropeanPowell

EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Nov 3
Starmer’s government totally, and without any shadow of a doubt are complicit with Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Over the years, Blair, May, Cameron, Sunak, Truss, Johnson, Braverman, Badenoch, Farage, Starmer, Lammy, all of them, guilty of not standing up to Netanyahu over Gaza, and with that destroying Britain’s reputation on the world stage. It beggars belief they did this.
What they have done is nothing less than total betrayal, the subsequent attacks on the ICC were compounded by Trump’s sanctions against this bastion of International Law, all of it remains beyond sickening.
Sir Keir Starmer supporting a disgusting fascist Israeli government, which saw him confirming, and giving license to Israel their “right” to deny water, food, and electricity, as well as laying siege on Gaza.
Totally illegal under the Geneva Convention.
I’ve started reading Peter Obourne’s book COMPLICIT: Britains role in the destruction of Gaza, going on the YouTube talk between Owen Jones and Obourne, it is absolutely clear that the coordinated, and manufactured consensus to promote Zionism above all ethical adherence to International Humanitarian Law was and continues to be obscene.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Asj4EW…
Trump will ensure that the ICC will be dismantled and killed off.
The ICJ will make cases to prosecute Whitehall.
Read 5 tweets
EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Nov 2
Scenario - After the UK state becomes privatised by US Blackrock, Blackstone, Vanguard, PEEL Group, Pronomos Capital, via the plethora of deregulated free zones in England, Scotland, and Wales, authoritarianism will expand with surveillance capitalism as its primary digital linchpin.
The ideological architecture behind what might otherwise look like technocratic policy are very real ‘exit strategies’ taking place immediately after Brexit.
What’s happening is a 25-year 'reconfiguration-of-the-UK' phase, where collective sovereignty is replaced in incremental steps with corporate sovereignty via free zones, port by port, zone by zone, region by region, patchworks of feudal enclaves and tax havens, all competing with one another in an unlevel market distorted playing field.
A private equity firm you should know of is Pronomos Capital, they are waiting in the wings. pronomos.vc/people
Pronomos explicitly advocates for “charter cities” - semi-autonomous zones with their own legal/regulatory frameworks, typically positioned as laboratories for governance innovation.
The intellectual lineage here is significant:
The Key Figures’ Models: Patri Friedman (grandson of Milton Friedman) - co-founded the Seasteading Institute, advocating for floating sovereign entities outside existing jurisdictions.
His model: competitive governance where jurisdictions compete like businesses for residents/investment.
Tom Bell - legal theorist who’s written extensively on “proprietary communities” and private governance systems.
His work provides the legal-theoretical scaffolding for how private entities could exercise state-like powers. Michael Strong, involved in various charter city projects globally, particularly in Honduras where this model has been tested.
Shanker Singham - former trade advisor, known as 'the brains behind Brexit' advocates for “regulatory freedom” zones.
His model emphasizes regulatory independence from national frameworks as economic competitiveness strategy.
Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen - venture capitalists who view governance itself as a technology problem solvable through startup-style iteration and competition.

Balaji Srinivasan - More complex. He's been:
CTO of Coinbase
General partner at Andreessen Horowitz (so VC in that capacity)
Angel investor/entrepreneur
But primarily known as an ideologue and theorist of techno-libertarian governance
Balaji is particularly significant because he's explicitly articulated the vision I'm describing.
He's written about:
"The Network State" - his book arguing for cloud-based nations that eventually acquire territorial sovereignty
Exit over voice - explicitly rejecting democratic reform in favor of creating new jurisdictions
Reversing the Reformation - his concept of returning to pre-democratic forms of corporate-sovereign entities
Pseudonymous economy - governance through cryptographic identity rather than citizenship
So while Balaji has done VC work, his primary role in this constellation is as the intellectual architect articulating how tech capital should transform governance itself.Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Oct 31
What You Can Do About UK Enterprise Zones

🧵 The UK’s enterprise zone network is expanding under Labour’s Industrial Strategy Zones. Here are concrete actions you can take to resist the corporate carve-up of Britain:

1/ **DEMAND TRANSPARENCY**
Ask your MP and local council: Which companies benefit from zone subsidies? What taxes do they avoid? What environmental damage do they cause? What IP are they acquiring? They’re using public money—you have a right to know.
1/12
2/ **CHALLENGE DEMOCRATIC DEFICITS** Enterprise zones bypass normal democratic oversight. Demand that all zones require local council approval, genuine public consultation with veto power, and annual performance reviews with revocation powers.
3/ **ATTACH CONDITIONS TO PUBLIC MONEY** No more corporate welfare without strings. Push for: living wage guarantees, union recognition, profit-sharing with communities, local hiring quotas, environmental compliance, and IP sharing requirements.
Read 14 tweets
EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Oct 30
Actions the @TheGreenParty and @thisisyourparty must consider implementing now that they have both publicly stated they are against deregulated Freeports and Special Economic Zones.
@graceblakeley and @jeremycorbyn discussion on free zones👇🏻
x.com/EuropeanPowell…
The Green Party's public page on voting against free zones👇🏻
greenparty.org.uk/2024/09/08/gre…
A Proposed Plan
Dismantle the deregulatory structure of all free zones, align them with the EU’s regulatory orbit. What must be demanded:
Immediate transparency: Full disclosure of which companies benefit from zone subsidies, what IP they acquire, what profits they extract, what taxes they avoid, and what environmental damage they cause.
Democratic accountability: All enterprise zones must operate under normal democratic oversight, including local council approval, genuine public consultation with veto power, and annual performance reviews with revocation powers.
Conditionality: Attach strings to all public subsidies—living wage guarantees, union recognition, profit-sharing with local communities, IP sharing requirements, environmental compliance, local hiring quotas.
Public ownership: Create genuinely public alternatives—community-owned food processing, publicly-run research facilities, municipal data centres, cooperative enterprise zones governed by workers and communities.
EU realignment: Rejoin EU regulatory frameworks that prevent state aid abuse and protect food standards, worker rights, environmental protections, and data privacy.
Labour organising: Unionise workers in all enterprise zones to resist exploitation and demand fair wages, secure contracts, and democratic workplace governance.
Legal challenges: Challenge the legality of Mayoral Development Orders, compulsory purchase orders, 25-year licenses that lock in corporate advantages, and “regulatory sandboxes” that suspend democratic protections.
Electoral pressure: Make enterprise zone accountability a voting issue in local and national elections. Demand candidates commit to zone reform or abolition.
International solidarity: Connect with communities globally fighting Special Economic Zones, Export Processing Zones, and corporate sovereignty—this is a worldwide phenomenon requiring worldwide resistance.
Alternative economic models: Build and demonstrate that democratic, cooperative, publicly-owned economic development delivers better outcomes than corporate welfare zones.
Media pressure: Force mainstream media to cover the zone network, 140+ zones affecting every aspect of national life deserve front-page investigation, not buried in business sections.
Parliamentary opposition: Demand MPs scrutinise ISZ governance, question the merger of Freeports and Investment Zones, challenge Defence and AI Growth Zone expansion, and investigate conflicts of interest in zone governance boards.
Community organising: Build coalitions between affected communities, farmers losing abattoirs, students in commercialised universities, workers in low-wage zone jobs, residents facing compulsory purchase, and communities losing democratic control.
The corporate carve-up of Britain is systematic, comprehensive, and intentional.
It has cross-party support and billions in sunk costs. But it’s also fragile.
These zones depend on:
Public money (which can be withdrawn)
Public legitimacy (which can be challenged)
Political protection (which can be voted out)
Legal frameworks (which can be challenged in courts)
Community acquiescence (which can be transformed into resistance)
I am a volunteer who has been researching the Tories and Labour's collusion in the nationwide stealth rollout of deregulated free zones.
Please read my findings on here, on Bluesky and on Substack💚
@ZackPolanski @zarahsultana
substack.com/home/post/p-17…
@TheGreenParty @thisisyourparty @graceblakeley @jeremycorbyn Have no idea why the bold lettering in my original post has been scrambled...
Read 5 tweets
EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Oct 27
Apart from @TheCanaryUK has anyone seen a single left-wing media outlet investigate the duopoly's nationwide rollout of deregulated free zones?
The ongoing proliferation of free zones under Keir Starmer now includes AI Growth Zones, and Defence Growth Zones (the digital layer), while Labour published their paper, Industrial Strategy Zones Action Plan in June 2025. The paper states it will merge the Tories' Freeports and SEZs under the umbrella of Industrial Strategy Zones (ISZs)
@novaramedia @declassifiedUK @TurnLeftMediaUK @DoubleDownNews @owenjonesjourno @The_TUC @RMTunion @UniteSharon @TheGreenParty @yourparty @zarahsultana @jeremycorbyn @ZackPolanski
Jeremy Corbyn 100% against Freeports and Special Economic Zones (SEZs).
@jeremycorbyn
"A freeport is essentially a tax-free zone created by a government to persuade a global corporation to move in there, and be exempt from an awful lot of laws and property taxes, and a number of other taxes as well, a lot of workers protections are lost in these free zones"
x.com/EuropeanPowell…
@jeremycorbyn @TheGreenParty voted to oppose the introduction of Freeports and Special Economic Zones across the United Kingdom at its annual party conference in Manchester in 2024
Read 11 tweets
EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Oct 18
My article on UK Special Economic Zones is free to read on my Substack. Please subscribe and, where possible, make a donation to my online Ko-Fi tip jar.
ko-fi.com/europeanpowell
Thank you💚
open.substack.com/pub/europeanpo… Image
Image
I think what’s happening in the UK with free zones represents one of the most significant, and underreported transformations of democratic governance in modern British history.
This is Structural State Capture, Not Policy Failure

The evidence I’ve compiled, combined with Private Eye’s Richard Brooks’ recent 8 page article on his Teesside investigation, reveals a systematic architecture of extraction rather than isolated corruption.
Read 14 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

Send Email!

:(