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…
@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...
Is the Trump administration setting up AI Growth Zones or something similar? YES
AMERICA’S AI ACTION PLAN JULY 2025
A deeply concerning parallel development is happening:
What the US is Doing:
1. AI Infrastructure Action Plan (July 2025)
The Trump administration released "America's AI Action Plan" with over 90 policy proposals focused on accelerating AI infrastructure development, including promoting rapid buildout of data centers, expediting permits for data centers and semiconductor fabs, and removing federal regulations that hinder AI development
2. Freedom Cities / Special Economic Zones
This is where it gets really similar to the UK situation:
A group including Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, and Marc Andreessen is promoting "Freedom Cities" largely deregulated special economic zones with minimal taxes and little government control.
The Freedom Cities Coalition has begun talks with the US government to build cities where clinical tests can be conducted without permission, autonomous vehicles can operate without restrictions, and nuclear reactors can be constructed without regulatory control
Trump first announced the Freedom Cities proposal in March 2023, calling for up to ten new master-planned cities on federal land. The proposal involves holding a contest to award development rights to private entities and has been developed further by conservative and libertarian think tanks
3. The Freedom Cities Coalition is a project of NeWay Capital, which has been centrally involved in Prospera ZEDE in Honduras, the same Prospera that's now suing Honduras for $11 billion in an ISDS claim.
Key Differences:
The US approach focuses on data centres and AI infrastructure through expedited permitting rather than creating designated "AI Growth Zones"
However, the "Freedom Cities" concept is essentially the same as UK free zones, Special Economic Zones with corporate governance
The US already has 374 Foreign Trade Zones (FTZs) that have existed since the Great Depression, which allow duty-free storage of imports, but these are different from the proposed Freedom Cities
The Alarming Pattern:
What's happening is that the same libertarian network (Thiel, Andreessen, Friedman) is pushing for similar deregulated corporate enclaves in both the US and UK. The UK went with SEZs/Freeports/AI Growth Zones, while the US is pursuing Freedom Cities alongside AI infrastructure deregulation, but the ideology and goal are identical: corporate sovereignty free from democratic constraints.
The US route is something arguably worse, Freedom Cities that would house AI infrastructure alongside biotech, nuclear, and other industries, all exempt from federal oversight.
AMERICA’S AI ACTION PLAN JULY 2025
A deeply concerning parallel development is happening:
What the US is Doing:
1. AI Infrastructure Action Plan (July 2025)
The Trump administration released "America's AI Action Plan" with over 90 policy proposals focused on accelerating AI infrastructure development, including promoting rapid buildout of data centers, expediting permits for data centers and semiconductor fabs, and removing federal regulations that hinder AI development
2. Freedom Cities / Special Economic Zones
This is where it gets really similar to the UK situation:
A group including Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, and Marc Andreessen is promoting "Freedom Cities" largely deregulated special economic zones with minimal taxes and little government control.
The Freedom Cities Coalition has begun talks with the US government to build cities where clinical tests can be conducted without permission, autonomous vehicles can operate without restrictions, and nuclear reactors can be constructed without regulatory control
Trump first announced the Freedom Cities proposal in March 2023, calling for up to ten new master-planned cities on federal land. The proposal involves holding a contest to award development rights to private entities and has been developed further by conservative and libertarian think tanks
3. The Freedom Cities Coalition is a project of NeWay Capital, which has been centrally involved in Prospera ZEDE in Honduras, the same Prospera that's now suing Honduras for $11 billion in an ISDS claim.
Key Differences:
The US approach focuses on data centres and AI infrastructure through expedited permitting rather than creating designated "AI Growth Zones"
However, the "Freedom Cities" concept is essentially the same as UK free zones, Special Economic Zones with corporate governance
The US already has 374 Foreign Trade Zones (FTZs) that have existed since the Great Depression, which allow duty-free storage of imports, but these are different from the proposed Freedom Cities
The Alarming Pattern:
What's happening is that the same libertarian network (Thiel, Andreessen, Friedman) is pushing for similar deregulated corporate enclaves in both the US and UK. The UK went with SEZs/Freeports/AI Growth Zones, while the US is pursuing Freedom Cities alongside AI infrastructure deregulation, but the ideology and goal are identical: corporate sovereignty free from democratic constraints.
The US route is something arguably worse, Freedom Cities that would house AI infrastructure alongside biotech, nuclear, and other industries, all exempt from federal oversight.
@TheGreenParty @thisisyourparty @graceblakeley @jeremycorbyn unroll @threadreaderapp
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