How a £1-an-acre trick is quietly handing Britain's industrial commons to AI companies, and why nobody has connected the dots until now.

My new essay on the Anthropic/Teesside data centre deal, the Paris AI Summit walkout, and why the UK's "free zones" programme is quietly sabotaging any future return to the EU.
Please subscribe, and support my research.
open.substack.com/pub/europeanpo…
1/8 1/ THE TEESSIDE DEAL: Two businessmen got the right to buy public land for £1/acre in 2021. The public body that owns it spent £450m+ cleaning it up.
This month, they sell 222 acres to Anthropic for £222m.
That's a roughly 1,000x markup, captured almost entirely by two men.

They poisoned your water. They knew they were going to. They removed the laws that prevented it, built the zones that enabled it, and are now filling those zones with infrastructure that makes it permanent. This is not negligence. This latest thread is about who did it, how, and what they're building next
In December 2023, I posted about the charter city plans of 3 notorious libertarian figures, Peter Thiel, Erick Brimen, and Shanker Singham. Read it first. Then come back. Because everything I flagged as warning signs is now infrastructure.

https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1730700526868640055

The WHO confirmed PFOA, a "forever chemical" in English tap water is carcinogenic. That was the opening. At the time it felt like a scandal that might force action. It didn't. Drinking water notices in England rose 285% between 2020 and 2024, from 34 to 131, with PFAS featuring prominently. 2025 is already tracking higher than 2022 and 2023 combined.

Scottish Financial News has published a piece on something called the Scotland Fund, a £10bn investment vehicle targeting data centres and luxury hospitality. It reads like a press release.
No byline.
No named sources.
No verified claims.
Thread on what's actually going on.
🧵
Article: scottishfinancialnews.com/articles/the-q… 2/ The article tells us the fund is "understood to be backed by" Forbes top-100 billionaires, that its consumer strategy is "unparalleled" (one unnamed senior figure), and that comparisons to early Blackstone and KKR are "harder to dismiss." Every claim is sourced to the fund itself.
That's not journalism.
That's placement.

On November 21, 2024, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a partnership with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager controlling over $10 trillion in assets. The tweet showed him and Chancellor Rachel Reeves in meetings with BlackRock executives, declaring determination to “capitalise on the UK’s position as a world leading hub for investment.”

Within months, BlackRock had acquired 80% ownership of three British freeports, Felixstowe, Harwich, and Thamesport, giving the firm control over 60% of UK container traffic. BlackRock announced a £500 million UK data centre partnership with Digital Gravity Partners. The firm manages £2.3 trillion globally and £600 billion of the UK defined contribution pension market.

Here’s what the majority of people understand instinctively, even if they lack the economic jargon: Companies like BlackRock behave like feudal landlords. They purchase infrastructure, water systems, ports, energy grids, data centres, at above-market rates using borrowed money. Then they transfer that debt onto the companies they’ve acquired.

You, the consumer, pay off that debt through higher bills.

The company, not the asset manager, services the debt. BlackRock and its shareholders extract profits while you’re hit with rising water bills, soaring energy costs, and inflated service charges. When systems fail (see: Thames Water’s £14 billion debt and sewage-filled rivers), taxpayers face bailouts while executives who loaded the debt have already cashed out.

This is a giant Ponzi scheme.
substack.com/@europeanpowel…

It's all coming out.
Listen to the account of Sasha Riley.
Trump bought and sold children with Epstein.
"I watched Trump kill a litter of puppies, they made me stand there, he would carve or kill the puppy and look to see what my reaction was"
"While we were in that room, adults at that party bust in the room, one of them had a gun, they assaulted her at gunpoint, they killed her in front of me"
substack.com/home/post/p-17… During the years SR was trafficked within the Trump/Epstein ring, he was forced to perform sexual acts during the filming of several child pornography films, including a snuff film. He recalls at least 10-12 such films. During the snuff film shoot, SR saw a girl child shot and killed during filming. After another film shoot, a girl child was taken to another room. SR recalls hearing gunshots. He said that when he heard the gunshots, he was scared. He said that another perpetrator still in the room with him, sensing his fear, said, “Don’t worry. Boys are hard to find.” The films were produced within the Trump/Epstein ring.

Let’s begin with what we can prove beyond doubt.
Guardian documents reveal a corruption scheme so brazen it belongs in a textbook on state capture. Here’s how it works:
The Money: Larry Ellison, Oracle founder and Trump associate, has funneled over £300 million to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI). Oracle already holds £1 billion in existing UK government cloud contracts with the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, and Department for Work and Pensions. In November 2025, the Home Office quietly extended Oracle’s deal by £54 million for five years.

open.substack.com/pub/europeanpo… The Salon Dinner: In January 2025, at London’s five-star Corinthia Hotel, Tony Blair and Nick Clegg (then Meta’s president for global affairs) hosted six tech company leaders plus Poppy Gustafsson, UK Investment Minister. Days later, TBI received early access to the AI action plan they would publicly endorse.
This is corruption: Private funding of policy development + early government access + public endorsement + funder profits from resulting policy.

Updates on Forest City 1
1. Paul Powlesland has confirmed he IS a board member of ACDC - the company receiving 80 acres worth millions. He previously forced me to publicly apologise TWICE for saying this. I was telling the truth. He concealed it.
ribaj.com/intelligence/b…
2. @horton_official 's quote from The Guardian's article dated 23rd Nov 2025 - 'Malik’s almost 800 supporters span the political spectrum, including Green party campaigners and leaders of rightwing thinktanks. He’s also enlisted Paul Powlesland, a nature campaigner and barrister, to join the board of the Albion City Development Corporation, which is overseeing the proposal'.
theguardian.com/environment/20…
3. I've now learned Dame Patricia Hewitt was the Secretary of State for Health from 2005 to 2007, and a member of the Labour Party - she is a key signatory lending establishment credibility to Forest City 1 - Hewitt is Shiv Malik's MOTHER-IN-LAW. This family relationship has never been disclosed in any promotional materials.
4. So the "cross-party support" includes:
Malik's mother-in-law (undisclosed)
Board member presented as independent watchdog (undisclosed)
Libertarian think tanks (disclosed)
80 acres for founders (admitted)
Where's the transparency?
5/ Malik has called me a "liar" and a "grifter" for exposing Forest City 1's charter city structure.
But HE conceals:
His mother-in-law's support
Powlesland's board position
The appointed trustee governance
The SEZ exemptions sought
6. The Guardian never disclosed:
Hewitt's family relationship
The governance structure details
The SEZ exemptions
The 80-acre founder gift
This isn't journalism, it's PR for insiders.
7. When "independent supporters" turn out to be board members and family, "transparency" looks very different.
Suffolk deserves the truth about who profits and who controls Forest City before decisions become irreversible.
Suffolk is not just a housing proposal.
It is the dress rehearsal for the privatisation of British geography.
And the left-wing signatories, however well-meaning, are currently the most effective part of the camouflage.
Forest City 1 Reality: The Community Land Trust (CLT) model is presented as progressive; residents gaining “genuine ownership.” But examine what this actually means: residents purchase property within a corporate-controlled jurisdiction operating under special legal status. Their “ownership” exists within a framework controlled by the Albion City Development Corporation (ACDC).
I have written several articles about Forest City 1, Suffolk. Please read, subscribe and share.
Forest City: The Ideological Coalition That Should Never Exist
open.substack.com/pub/europeanpo…
Forest City 1 (UK) as NRx Prototype: A Critical Analysis
substack.com/@europeanpowel…
URGENT WARNING: Forest City 1 and the Charter City Agenda
europeanpowell.substack.com/p/urgent-warni…
Suffolk's Forest City and the Ghost of Próspera: Why Britain Should Learn From Honduras
europeanpowell.substack.com/p/suffolks-for…
LBC’s Forest City Lovefest: How the Spiked Network Sold a Libertarian Dream as Community Housing
europeanpowell.substack.com/p/lbcs-forest-…
If Forest City proceeds, here’s what you’re accepting:
1. Democratic Accountability Becomes Optional
Appointed trustees with binding charters replace elected local councils.
2. Your Villages Have No Guaranteed Veto
The Secretary of State in Westminster decides your community’s fate, not you.
3. Private Corporations Get Permanent Governance Rights
Through appointed trust boards and 25-year SEZ licenses.
4. Tax Revenue Is Negotiable
“Canary Wharf style” exemptions mean businesses don’t pay what everyone else pays—and you make up the difference.
5. Planning Law Is Bypassed
Development corporation powers override normal democratic planning processes.
6. Basic Services Could Be Weaponized
Próspera charter city (Honduras) cut off water when residents resisted. Who controls your water, electricity, internet in a privately-governed zone?
7. It Sets A National Precedent
If Suffolk accepts this, charter cities spread:
- “Tech City North” (Manchester corridor)
- “Green City Wales” (Cardiff corridor)
- “Innovation City Scotland” (Central Belt)

2024 was the year when Starmer's government sealed the fate of the electorate's future by partnering up with the most powerful corporations on the planet, handing over governance powers to corporations under localised freedoms in +140 free zones, which as of Jan 1st 2026 still remain vastly under-reported.
PPP on steroids.
Thread
Here's my guide on how to halt the corporate capture of the Commons👇🏻
substack.com/@europeanpowel…

These corporations have now been given access to the UK's critical infrastructure, which they describe as new, additional assets to their financial portfolios.
Both the Tories and Starmer's Labour continue to sell the lie that PPP, disproportionately dominated by corporate interests, is something that will help the vast majority of people. This couldn't be further from the truth, as corporate profits surged to utterly obscene levels, while public services, already in a perpetual state of permanent atrophy, are dismantled.
substack.com/@europeanpowel…

The Corporate Carve-Up of Britain: 12 Actions to Fight Back Against Enterprise Zones
What You Can Do About UK Enterprise Zones
Labour’s Industrial Strategy Zones are accelerating the transformation of British democracy into corporate fiefdoms. Here’s what you need to know and what you can do about it.

Britain is being carved up. Not through dramatic privatisation announcements or controversial legislation, but through a quiet, systematic network of over 140 enterprise zones that operate outside normal democratic control, offer corporations tax breaks worth billions, and are now being consolidated and expanded under Labour’s Industrial Strategy.
Thread These aren’t marginal experiments. They cover food production, universities, defence, AI development, data centres, and entire regional economies. They use public money to subsidise private profit while bypassing the democratic oversight that would normally apply to such spending.

The model is simple: designate an area as a “zone,” suspend normal planning rules and democratic accountability, offer corporations tax breaks and regulatory freedom, and lock in these advantages through 25-year contracts that outlast multiple governments.

Results of UK Freeports under the duopoly (2021-2024)
The underwhelming performance patterns of previous free zones under Thatcher and Cameron continue the neoliberal zonification of the UK under the Starmer Government's 'newer/rebranded' Freeports programme.
In 2022, the UK Govt estimated freeports would create 214,000 jobs, but as of February 2024 only 4% of that target had been achieved.
A 2024 House of Commons report shows freeports missed their job goals by 77% to 96%.
The British public is being scammed yet again, as State aid post-Brexit is being extracted hand over fist, the illusion of corporate welfare for economic growth does what it was always designed to do, destroy the commons and usher in a corporate political model of governance while extracting public money with malice. What’s happening is a repeat of the first rollout of free zones under Thatcher, which were a disaster, the excuse was the EU prevented 'real growth' due to restrictions on State aid, but given the scandalous results at Teesside, exposed by @PrivateEyeNews , £560 million in taxpayers money was splurged on Teesside Freeport, (22.4 times the original amount of £25 million).
This raises serious questions about the efficacy of free zone policy, by repeating the same mistakes again and again.
There is no other way to interpret what has transpired, a corporate political heist of public money under the guise of ‘economic growth’, so-called Brexit freedoms have literally lined the pockets of a few businessmen, such as those at Teesside, which was after all, the flagship Brexit Freeport of Rishi Sunak.
These are important concerns that are well-supported by both the documented historical evidence.

Why Are Governments Racing to Implement AI Without Protecting Citizens?
A thread on four essential books that explain what's really happening, and why you should read them all.
Want to understand why governments worldwide are falling over themselves to implement AI at Silicon Valley's pace rather than building citizen protections?
These four books together reveal the disturbing answer: We've already lost the plot.
🧵


The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff (2019)
Zuboff showed us HOW this happened: Tech companies learned to claim human experience as free raw material, turning our behavior into prediction products sold in futures markets.
Governments didn't regulate this because they didn't understand it until it was too late.
Zuboff's warning: Surveillance capitalism creates "extreme concentrations of knowledge and power free from democratic oversight."
By the time regulators noticed, these companies had become more powerful than most governments. They now SET the terms, not follow them.
This book explains the foundation of tech's unchecked power.

URGENT WARNING: Forest City 1 and the Charter City Agenda
This is not a housing development. This is a pilot project for privatised governance.

Forest City 1 is the first of a planned network of privately controlled charter cities on British soil - 45,000 acres of Suffolk farmland to be transformed into a governance experiment by a consortium of right-wing libertarian ideologues. More developments are in the pipeline. The supporters behind this scheme are not confused property developers. They are the architects of Britain's post-Brexit zone archipelago and charter-city governance model.
Forest City co-founder Shiv Malik contacted me directly, offering to "answer my questions." I did what any responsible citizen should: I asked him for clarity about land ownership, democratic control, SEZ plans, governance, displacement, investor benefits, and transparency.
He answered.
And what he admitted — 'in his own words' — is more damning than any critic of charter cities could invent.
forestcity.uk
Thread THE PLAN IN PLAIN TERMS
Forest City's backers have already confirmed in writing they will pursue:

Canary Wharf-style tax exemptions – removing taxation from vast tracts of British land
Building-tax exemptions – no council tax, no business rates, no democratic accountability
Government Development Corporation – unelected bureaucrats, not residents, will control all land distribution
Permanently appointed land-trust board – no elections, ever (justified because "democratic choice often runs counter to long-term interests")
80 acres gifted to the private consortium as profit – public land transferred to private hands as payment

This is not speculation. These are their stated objectives.

⚠️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…

https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1987428910519222470?s=20

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.

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

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.

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…

https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1983857036140908788

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…

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…
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.

It is patently clear that if the MSM gave as much attention to Palantir and Blackrock's incursions into the public sector, and the duopoly's nationwide rollout of deregulated free zones as much as they give to Nigel Farage and immigration, we would be seeing outrage directed at these actual seismic issues that are secretly changing Britain into an authoritarian state under a right-wing corporate political model.

https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1974732012532510909

Blackrock have 677 registered entities at Companies House UK, possibly more, many of the addresses are from the Cayman Islands. Blackrock has 80% ownership in 3 British Freeports, Felixtowe, Harwich, and Thamesport, they are moving into critical public infrastructure.
Blackrock also has 4.7% shares in Palantir.
Palantir have 24 contracts with key UK public institutions, the NHS, the Ministry of Defence, the polices forces, the Cabinet Office, the DLUHC, and Coventry City Council whose contract is the 24th and was arranged by Keir Starmer this year.
The UK is being privatised.
…te.company-information.service.gov.uk/search?q=Black…


Starmer's enthusiastic partnership announcement suggests policy capture at the highest levels. This isn't ordinary foreign investment; it's a systematic acquisition of control over the infrastructure backbone of the UK's economy by one the most criminally corrupt shadow banks in the world.