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EuropeanPowell Profile picture
@EuropeanPowell
Jul 15, 2022 • 24 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
Tories already expanding vocabulary of Freeports by adding 'zones' into the mix, they're not just ports! The #Liverpool zone has a population of 2,3 million! Entire regions under corporate laws dictated and enforced under a privately owned judiciary. Brexit deregulation hell.
Excellent article by @eyes_lilly on Tories post Brexit Charter cities which are well underway as the next ERG PM takes the UK to it's authoritarian corporate run conclusion.
medium.com/@cormack.lawso…
Of course none of this was on the side of a bus, r/w #libertarian policies have for decades proven notoriously unpopular with the public, that's why think tanks were used under a pretext of 'charity status' so r/w ideologues could carry on with their destruction by stealth
Prof.Paul Romer (mentor to Rishi Sunak) who along with Penny Mordaunt is now installing UK’s Charter Cities post Brexit. Once deregulation is hastily done, it's open season for the radical right to do whatever the f*ck they want, privatising whole cities
taxpayersalliance.com/charter_cities…
Great blog here on pros & cons of charter cities, basically when the right have control, it will be awful. Cities have long exercised power over land use and zoning (notice how Tories talk of zones)& they have frequently used this power to exclude needy outsiders #Brexit
verfassungsblog.de/the-danger-zon…
They do this by passing local ordinances that prevent the construction of public and low-income housing. Home-voters fear that the presence of low-income residents will diminish their quality of life and increase the crime rate. Ring any bells on hostile Govt policies?
Don't think that a new Govt can repeal those laws, they will be irreversible and under the jurisdiction of private companies, why do you think Truss, Sunak, Mordaunt, Trevelyan have been back and forth to the US? They are importing r/w charter cities model to UK. ERG's endgame.
@5by5Creativity writes on the whole libertarian package that comes with right wing charter cities now being installed in post brexit UK. Please follow her, she's fantastic
bylinetimes.com/2022/06/30/bor…
@AnnAubert3 I believe has written the first article on UK charter cities, read it here and please give her a follow she's brilliant!
yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/brexit/br…
@fslconsult wrote this astonishing piece on charter cities 'Beware the Tories New Threat to our Democracy' Please follow him. #CharterCities
pressreader.com/uk/the-sentine…
Tories 'Global Britain, leveling up' slogans belie the truth of what's actually being planned for the 'emerging economy' of 3rd country UK. Frontier capitalism is a form of corporate colonialism, it swoops in when a country's economy is in crisis & severely weakened by disasters.
Cherry on top for Tories was the pandemic, an opportunity to cripple the public sphere by stealing billions via non tendered contracts to mates with no experience in PPE. Lack of competition was copied from the Bush administration during 9/11. 'Ramped up' military funding next.
Tories have for years been emptying public coffers, your taxes intended for public spending stolen for corporate gain & ultimate control of your lives, welfare state will be a thing of the past. R/w revolution took chunks out of public services, next step is ripping out the core.
Need your help in getting this out to the public at large, time is running out, next Tory PM is an ERG libertarian evangelical zealot who will ensure the harshest of r/w policies are unleashed on an unsuspecting UK public. Please read, research and RT before its too late.
unroll @threadreaderapp
Appeal to my followers & anyone alarmed by what the Tories are not saying about their post Brexit plans for privately run cities (charter cities) to please RT/like this thread. I need your help to create momentum and raise awareness in the hope the msm & opposition pick this up.
“Don’t be daft, it couldn’t happen here”
Charter cities are a ploy to enrich the rich even further, increasing inequality. US billionaire Peter Thiel, a key financier of Trump campaign, sees them as a route to replacing the US Govt with corporate power.
thenational.scot/politics/20267…
Honduras perfect example of why Romer’s model is ultimately unrealistic & can be oblivious to particular contexts, cultures -especially a country currently in political and economic turmoil. Ring any bells? Brexit, Covid ravaged UK incoming Sunak/Mordaunt!
faithandpubliclife.com/a-case-against…
Our cost-effectiveness model suggests that over 50-years horizon charter cities would have a 127x return on investment. See that 50 years bit?
'We don’t believe that charter cities are a cost-effective method to lift individuals out of poverty directly'
rethinkpriorities.org/publications/i…
'Laboratories of governance' model means additional risks involved. Corporatised Neocolonialism. Many charter city projects already riskier than traditional real estate investments. Reminder Russia report states: Brit Est compromised beyond prevention, estate agents, lawyers, PR
Honduras, Romer's idea became mired in controversy almost immediately. Residents in the proposed sites complained that officials had not consulted them. The Govt signed an investment deal without the consent of the Transparency Commission. Remind you of anything in UK?
Those who voted for Brexit knew nothing about Tories plans for r/w lawless charter cities, info was scant in the public domain save for @bakerstherald & a few independent/obscure sources, Don't forget that advocates of charter cities leaned on the above report I just shared.
My 🧵on ERG who for 29 years have been shutting down all moderation, taking public money and astronomical sums from private corporate donors and using that to push the most radical libertarian ideologies into Govt policy making under mask of charity status

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More from @EuropeanPowell

EuropeanPowell Profile picture
Nov 9
⚠️WARNING⚠️
Britain's Biggest Heist Since the Enclosures: Oracle, BlackRock, and Labour Are Stealing Your Future
Imagine this: Tech billionaire Larry Ellison pumps £300M into Tony Blair's think tank to ghostwrite UK AI policy, then Oracle scoops £54M in secret Home Office extensions and billions in digital ID contracts.
It's not a conspiracy. It's proven corruption, exposed by Guardian docs: backroom access, fake "independent" endorsements, and a revolving door spinning faster than a Ponzi scheme.
But that's just the appetiser.
BlackRock, your pension's shadowy overlord, snags 80% of UK's key ports in a £22.8B fire sale, controlling 60% of container traffic while loading £14B Thames Water debt onto your bills.
Freeports? Promised 80,000 jobs, delivered 5,600, at a blistering £896K per head.
Teesside's "deregulated paradise"? Run by a cocaine-trafficking "security firm" evading £1.5M in taxes.
Labour's betrayal seals it: Starmer's "progressive" zones are Tory tax havens rebranded, overriding local votes, tokenizing your parks on BlackRock's blockchain, and betting £14B on an AI bubble set to pop next quarter.
Water guzzled like a city's thirst, air poisoned with 2,000 tons of smog yearly, communities crushed, all subsidised by your energy levy hikes.
This is a corporate coup enclosing the commons: water, ports, data, nature itself.
FOIs blocked, minutes redacted, 25-year locks unbreakable.
I've joined the dots.
Demand accountability before reversal is impossible. Dive into the full investigation, sources, scandals, and a blueprint for resistance.
Read Now: The Corporate Coup Over the Commons. Please share and subscribe to my Substack.
I am a volunteer exposing the massive Ponzi Scheme that is the duopoly's nationwide stealth rollout of deregulated free zones.
Ask your neighbours and friends if they've heard of free zones, they will look at you like you have two heads.
Keep in mind, this is exactly what our corporate captured government want.
I call it Zone Fever
#CorporateCapture #UKPolitics #Enclosure2Point0
open.substack.com/pub/europeanpo…Image
Please support my research❤️
I spoke with Spotlight On Corruption a few days ago, and they said I was the only person in the UK raising awareness about free zones!
ko-fi.com/europeanpowell
Read 4 tweets
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

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