Thank you Left Unity and Merseyside Pensioners Association for flying me over to Liverpool to talk about the dangers of SEZs and Freeports, and also for showing me around the beautiful city of Liverpool.
It was a very lively meeting, and it was clear that the public know very little about free zones which becomes ever more alarming given that corporations will wield governance powers inside the zones while Starmer's changed Labour Party takes a 'secondary position.'
As promised, here are my notes. @LWHstays @19MW98

Hello everyone, thank you so much for inviting me to talk about SEZs and Freeports. I will talk about what you won’t see on the many council and corporate websites, that are backing Sunak and Starmer’s nationwide rollout of 74 deregulated SEZs and 12 Freeports.
You would think that the UK MSM would be on top of exposing the true nature of councils and companies embroiled in the setup of free zones. The complexity of free zones is their camouflage which needs proper and urgent scrutiny. The public and their respective communities are not being sufficiently informed about the impacts deregulated free zones are notorious for implementing. At their worst free zones remove the obstacles of regulation and democracy for profit gains at the expense of local community infrastructure and preservation of the environment.

What is a Special Economic Zone (SEZ)?
An SEZ is a designated region 'freed' from the host country's regulations, including suspension of the rule of law which is then tailored for financial gains, and extraction purposes, be that minerals, fossil fuels. Corporations are trusted to ‘self-regulate' inside the boundaries of the SEZ, meaning they can create their own rules, this is known as Adam Smith’s ‘Invisible Hand’ something the EU implicitly rejects as antithetical to the Single Market.
SEZs can house a Freeport, an airport, whole towns, entire cities, and rural areas under a ‘private/public governed authority.’
The UK’s 74 SEZs range from 34 to 75km in diameter.
The Liverpool SEZ including its Freeport is approximately 45km in diameter. SEZs are expansionist by nature, businesses notoriously chase 10-year corporate tax breaks, and a raft of deregulations that favour the private sector. Companies inside the boundaries of SEZs compete in an unlevel playing field without contributing anything to communities other than job displacement, modern-day slavery, environmental pollution, and badly made products.
So, think of an SEZ as a room within a room, or a state within a state.

What is a Freeport?
Traditionally, a port is publically owned and regulated, and deals mainly with transshipment, importing and exporting goods around the world. Publicly owned ports come under port governance where local control over port infrastructure prevents profiteering.
Freeports are privately owned and are all about extending tax and customs advantages to businesses. Freeports come with relaxed laws and by extension relaxed enforcement of those laws.
In terms of what Freeports can achieve, there is no evidence to confirm that Freeports encourage economic growth or provide jobs for local people. LCR freeport management have focused particularly on attracting new employers from outside the region, this is known as job displacement. Freeports in the wrong hands share similarities with organized crime syndicates. Illegal activity comes in numerous forms, weapons trading, drugs, stolen art, private banking, moving/storing of gold, money laundering, human trafficking, and the scrapping of minimum wage amd Human Rights abuses.
UK Freeports are privately owned and run by stand-alone corporations with a future scope and incentive to expand into the surrounding SEZ territory.
All UK SEZs and Freeports were set up with secondary legislation, which means pretty much zero Parliamentary and public scrutiny.

We have to consider who is set to gain from the Liverpool SEZ and Freeport, namely PEEL Group Ltd who are a notoriously monopolistic company with a controversial history.

John Whittaker (born 14 March 1942) is a British billionaire. He is chairman of the Peel Group, a property business that mainly invests in North West England. Although publicity-shy, he is one of the most influential business leaders for Greater Manchester and the North West and was named the most influential northerner by The Big Issue magazine in 2010.
Whittaker convinced the BBC to reject three sites across Manchester to move to MediaCityUK in Salford Quays. The presence of the BBC would then act as a magnet to attract indie production companies to Salford and the Peel Group would make money from the rent and lease agreements on the development.
In 2012 The World Heritage Committee decided to delete the property “Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City” from the World Heritage List, due to the irreversible loss of attributes conveying the outstanding universal value of the property.
The World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies had previously recommended to the World Heritage Committee to express serious concerns about the proposed development of Liverpool Waters and the fact that Liverpool City Council is inclined to grant consent to the proposals submitted by Peel Holdings, in spite of the objections that have been expressed by English Heritage.
There is a great danger that PEEL Group Ltd will enjoy further excessive corporate influence over councils and public services boosted by SEZ status, on top of having a track record of controversial issues, including environmental pollution, fracking collusions with the council, and the police to gather intelligence on anti-fracking protests, excessive influence on affairs and development in the Liverpool region, claiming Peel "blurred the boundaries between public and private interests”, tax evasion, illegally extracting peat from its land near Salford, greenhouse gas emissions, lack of environmental assessments. In 2014, Peel's Clydeport business pleaded guilty to health and safety breaches and was fined £650,000 following a triple fatality. Peel have been described as one of the 'secretive' companies that "hoards England's land" and has made significant impacts, good and bad, on the environment and people's lives:
Peel Holdings operates behind the scenes, quietly acquiring land and real estate, cutting billion-pound deals and influencing numerous planning decisions. Its investment decisions have had an enormous impact, whether for good or ill, on the places where millions of people live and work.
So if PEEL Group’s atrocious track record of crimes is anything to go by, imagine how much worse they will become inside a deregulated free zone.

A very serious question must be answered, will PEEL Group Ltd stand to hugely benefit from State Aid (public money) allocated for the Liverpool SEZ which is £160 million including corporate tax breaks for 10 years and licenses that run for 25 years?
There is a great danger that PEEL Group Ltd will enjoy further excessive corporate influence over councils and public services boosted by SEZ status, despite having a track record of controversial issues.
John Whittaker lives on the Isle of Man which is a tax haven.
The Tory post-Brexit initiative of 12 Freeports and 74 SEZs being implemented across the entire UK, includes turning Manchester and Liverpool into deregulated Special Economic Zones (SEZs), this was fully backed by the Labour Party who were board members of Sunak’s nationwide Freeports/SEZs consortia.
Liverpool Mayor Steve Rotheram signed off on Liverpool’s SEZ/Freeport status with the Tories.

Now for some numbers.
There 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 took place between 2021 and 2022.
Labour MPs, Mayors, councillors, Lords, and Baronesses were active board members of Sunak and Truss’s nationwide SEZs/Freeports consortia.
Each SEZ recieves £160 million in State aid multiplied by 74 = £11 billion 840 million
Each Freeport receives £25 million seed capital which is private money multiplied by 12 = £300 million
Note that Sunak’s flagship Brexit SEZ/Freeport at Teeside has already spent £560 million of taxpayers money. Profits are split 9/10 in favour of the private sector.
Those figures are actually not big enough for long term investment, but are sufficient for a boom-and-bust approach.

What is the difference between Freeports/SEZs in the EU and the UK?
It comes down to EU regulations on State Aid where the European Commission is charged with ensuring that State aid rules are applied and observed equally across all the Member States to prevent fragmentation and distortion of its Single Market. The EU prohibits govts of member states from allocating public subsidies to companies of their choosing as a profit motive.
The EU cannot accept a country that has laws in place that create unfair competition by setting up an unlevel playing field.
This is why Keir Starmer says "There will be no rejoining the EU in my lifetime.”

Labour along with the Tories know that Brexit has rendered the UK capital hungry and desperate for growth. The duopoly are selling off UK sovereignty and vast swathes of territories to foreign capital such as Blackrock, DP World, PEEL Group, Deloitte, and Exxon Mobil, corporations with atrocious track records in fraud, tax evasion, human rights abuses, on-site fatalities, and environmental pollution, all the while perpetuating the 40-year-old lie that is Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). FDI has 2 two forms: physical plants and new buildings OR foreign purchases from existing companies. Politicians such as Reeves and Hunt are known to confuse the two forms under the rhetoric of 'economic growth and Britain being the best place in the world to invest'.
As SEZs and Freeports become operational, corporate governance begins at pace, public services are deemed ‘small potatoes’ and will be privatized, councils are bankrupted and asset-stripped ready for private equity to step in and buy up, on the cheap, all public buildings, agricultural, business, and residential properties under mass Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs). Public infrastructure will be transformed into investable assets to generate steady returns for investors. The likes of Blackrock will privatise Britain – housing, education, health, nature and green energy – with taxpayer money as a sweetener.
BlackRock has long peddled the idea of public-private partnerships for infrastructure, climate and development. Last October 2024, the Labour Govt Department for Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government quietly published an update on Compulsory Purchase Orders, called Guidance on the Compulsory Purchase, it is 192 pages long. CPOs apply to business, agricultural, and residential properties

What I call ‘Zone Fever’ was smuggled inside the Brexit Trojan Horse. The transition period after Brexit is currently busy with preparing the UK for total privatization.

It gets worse. What is ISDS and LCIA?
Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) allows corporations to sue Govts for billions in damages when a corporation believes its rights have been infringed upon; such as polluting the environment, shredding workers rights, and making faulty products. ISDS is a secretive corporate justice court that can bypass a country’s domestic courts and sovereignty, it was set up by The World Bank in 1966, it has a committee of 3 individuals, none of whom have a law degree. ISDS also has another UK equivalent known as the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), which is written into the 25-year licenses of all 86 UK free zones. ISDS is written into the UK's post-Brexit CPTPP free trade deals. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Retained EU Law bill sunsetted 600 laws on 31st December 2023 with thousands more for the chop by 2026, the 3 main targets were employment rights, food safety and environmental laws. The REUL Bill is now in Keir Starmer’s intray.
Read Silent Coup by Matt Kennard and Claire Provost for more on ISDS.

What is the ideology behind Freeports and SEZs?
The current ideology embraced by Sunak, Truss, Starmer, and Reeves, hails from the US, the goal is to abolish the centralised state and replace it with more manageable small states all of which are privatised. This has its roots in empire-building and British colonialism from the East India Company in 1600 through to Hong Kong and Singapore in the mid-1800s, where the British installed dozens of Freeports, bringing with them their own laws, and courts, this was known as ‘China’s century of humiliation.’
In the 1980s Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe’s aim was to turn the UK into 1 big tax haven filled with dozens of free zones, subdividing the land for corporate rule, but they came up against the EU’s rules on State aid and SEZs.

What comes next after Freeports and SEZs?
Freeports and SEZs are stepping stones to charter cities, these are a type of city in which a guarantor from a developed country would create a city within a developing host country.
The public is basically paying for the privatisation of their own towns, rural areas, and cities.
Once the UK’s 74 SEZs and 12 Freeports have sufficiently established themselves and become operational, they then grow by penetrating the social collective fabric of a region by hollowing it out from within. SEZs and Freeports are stepping stones to charter cities. A charter (private) city then replaces the ‘public city.’ Charter cities are hotbeds of corporate corruption as governance powers are fully handed over to CEOs, under ’localised freedoms.’ Neoliberals and libertarians alike espouse the shrinking down of big govt into more manageable pieces, this why deregulated zoning is a key component of corporate infrastructure. Cardiff would compete with Birmingham, Plymouth would compete with Glasgow, and so on, tax rates and laws between cities would wildly vary causing fiscal anarchy and societal chaos.

In summary, while SEZs and Freeports aim to spur economic development, the potential downsides include significant losses in public autonomy over economic, environmental, and social governance, with concerns about transparency, equity, and democratic control being paramount.

The rollout of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and freeports in the UK has sparked concerns over the potential loss of public autonomy. Here are some key downsides:

Reduced Democratic Oversight: SEZs and freeports often operate under different regulatory frameworks, which might bypass standard democratic processes. This can lead to a situation where local and even national laws are less effective or applicable within these zones, reducing public and elected officials' oversight over economic activities, land use, and environmental regulations. The governance of these zones can be outsourced to private entities or special bodies, which might not prioritize public interest over corporate benefits.

Erosion of Public Control Over Land and Resources: These zones can lead to significant portions of land being controlled by private interests with minimal public input, potentially leading to a scenario where public land is sold or leased under favourable terms for private entities rather than for the benefit of local communities. There have been allegations and concerns about land deals in areas like Teesside, where public land was transferred to private hands at very low costs, suggesting a loss of control over public assets. Mayoral development corporations can bring about regeneration by assembling land and providing infrastructure over a wide area to secure or encourage its development by others. A Mayoral development corporation may do anything it considers appropriate for the purposes of its object (i.e. securing the regeneration of land in its area). Likewise, it may have powers to acquire land in its area by compulsory purchase.

Taxation and Financial Transparency: The tax incentives provided to businesses within SEZs and freeports can be seen as a form of corporate welfare, where public revenue is foregone in favor of private profit. This can lead to reduced public funds for services, and there's also the worry about these zones becoming havens for tax evasion or money laundering, further diminishing public financial control.

Impact on Workers' Rights: Deregulation in free zones often leads to a rollback of labour standards, potentially undermining workers' rights as companies could exploit the regulatory leniency to reduce wages or bypass labour protections. This has been a point of contention, with critics arguing that the drive for economic growth might come at the cost of workers' well-being.

Environmental Regulations: Freeports and SEZs deregulatory frameworks lead to ecological degradation or pollution, as the drive for economic activity overshadows environmental considerations. There have been reports of environmental concerns linked to freeport developments, like in Teesside, where industrial activities have been linked to marine life damage.

Economic Displacement: There's a risk that SEZs and freeports might not create new economic activity but rather displace existing businesses from outside the zones to within, leading to no net economic gain but rather a redistribution that favors areas with freeport status, potentially at the expense of other regions.

Public Autonomy in Policy Making: The concentration of economic activity and decision-making power in these zones could lead to a scenario where national or local economic policies are influenced or dictated by the needs and demands of these zones, reducing the autonomy of public institutions in shaping economic strategies that should serve broader public interests. Blackrock will privatise the UK totally backed and endorsed by Keir Starmer and his right-wing cabal.

https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1892514360167207237

Told you many times over about mass Compulsory Purchase Orders taking place across the UK.
Labour published a 192 page document on CPOs in Oct 2024.
CPO's apply to business, agricultural, and residential properties.
Connected to this is the duopoly's rollout of 74 deregulated SEZs and 12 Freeports.
For instance the Plymouth South Devon Freeport/SEZ is 75km in diameter.
This means big agri obliterates British farming and introduces US/Australian style intensive practices, absolutely awful. The new law will allow officials to buy land under compulsory purchase orders without having to factor in the “hope value” – a massive price premium granted to any land on which developers hope to secure planning permission.
@LizWebsterSBF
theguardian.com/politics/2023/…

Palantir is a sinister spytech outfit owned by right wing libertarian venture capitalist Peter Thiel who said this, “The NHS makes people sick”
Palantir 'help' governments conduct law enforcement, warfare and policing.
Why was Palantir given the multimillion-pound contract to run the NHS federated data platform?
The UK Government has a troubling history of giving contracts to its friends. The head of Palantir’s UK operation subsequently made a donation to a Conservative Minister.
goodlawproject.org/update/nhs-sig….

In 2015 Palantir was valued at $20 billion, with Thiel being the company's largest shareholder.
Christopher Wylie, the former research director of Cambridge Analytica, said that several meetings had taken place between Palantir and Cambridge Analytica.

Palantir's ICM software is considered 'mission critical' to ICE.

Palantir's participation in COVID-19 response projects re-ignited debates over its controversial involvement in tracking illegal immigrants, especially its alleged effects on digital inequality and potential restrictions on online freedoms.

Peter Thiel funded Patri Friedman’s Seasteading Company which aims to turn the oceans into real estate via floating cities.

Billionaire Peter Thiel backed Próspera, a US company started by a group of extreme libertarians, also backed by former World Bank chief economist Paul Romer. (Romer was Sunak's mentor at Stanford University, he lectured on SEZs, and charter cities as neocolonialist regions carved out from a hosting country with separate laws and corporate sovereignty.
Collective sovereignty is people power, corporate sovereignty is the asset-class's power.
Próspera tried to establish a charter city run by a private governmentt on the Honduran island of Roatán. The Honduras Supreme Court shut down Próspera's plans because it violated Honduran citizens' sovereignty.
Próspera retaliated and invoked an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism and is currently suing the Honduran Government for $11 billion, which is 2 thirds of the Honduran Government's annual budget. There are currently 5 ISDS cases against the Honduran Government.

ISDS is included in all post-Brexit CPTPP free trade deals.
x.com/EuropeanPowell…
ISDS has a domestic UK equivalent mechanism that is written into England's 48 Special Economic Zones and 8 Freeports, it is called the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), which is written into the 25-year licenses of all England's free zones.
Do you see how this is all shaping up for the complete corporate libertarian takeover of the UK?
The Tories initiated 74 SEZs and 12 Freeports which was approved and signed off on by Labour MPs, Mayors, councillors, Lords, and Baronesses who were active board members of Sunak and Truss's nationwide SEZs/Freeports consortia.

SEZs, Freeports, and charter cities are violent incursions into the public sector and the democratic infrastructure of nations, they carve out extra-territorial spaces for profit motives, often with astronomical sums of public funding, in the case of the UK via State aid.
All 74 SEZS receive £160 million in State aid multiplied by 74 = £11 billion 840 million.
Each Freeport receives £25 million seed capital (private investment) multiplied by 12 = £300 million
Yet, Sunak's flagship Brexit Freeport at Teesside has spent £560 million of taxpayers money, go figure.

The Labour Govt published a 192-page document on Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) last October 2024, it was updated in January 2025.
CPO's apply to business, agricultural, and residential properties.
CPOs are grist for the mill in deregulated SEZs and Freeports.
The next stage in expansionist free zones is corporate land and property grabs, which are stepping stones to charter cities.
6000 people's homes to be demolished in a mass Compulsory Purchase Order in Birmingham. x.com/EuropeanPowell…
Guess what? Birmingham is host to 6 SEZs, Birmingham council was issued with a S114 notice in 2024, which is technically bankruptcy. 192 councils have higher debt rates than Birmingham.
inyourarea.co.uk/news/full-list…

The largest shareholders of Palantir in early 2024 were Peter Thiel, Blackrock, and The Vanguard Group.
Peter Thiel “ I no longer believe freedom and democracy are compatible”

@Keir_Starmer announced a govt partnership with Blackrock on X.
x.com/EuropeanPowell…

Starmer also announced that 700 corporate lobbyists were to be handed govt powers and that the UK government would take a ‘secondary position’.
This is exactly what right-wing libertarians have been incubating for over 70 years, to reduce Govt to the size of a mouse and drown it in a bathtub.

The UK is in serious shit.
jacobin.com/2023/11/hondur…


"He was a beneficiary of donations from tech figure Peter Thiel, whose largesse that cycle also saw him bankrolling campaigns by JD Vance and Blake Masters."
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/f…

Here we go, Bristol is now inside a deregulated Special Economic Zone.
Seasteading companies are libertarian attempts at exit, they are notoriously anti-regulation, and at odds with protecting the ocean from crazy billionaires with nothing better to do than destroy the planet for profit.

“The Seasteading Institute is not going to be supporting projects that don’t protect the environment as long as I work here,” said Carly Jackson, Deputy Director of the Seasteading Institute, which is the ideological home for the movement. But when asked if she would support regulations in order to protect the environment, she said no. “It’s more a violation of my own values to try and control other people.”

The Seasteading Institute adopted 'climate change' as an issue it could address around 2016, when it traveled to Tahiti in French Polynesia to create a legal structure for ‘seazones’ that would have a “special governing framework.”
Once again @Guardian ignores the dangers of free zoning.
Raymond Craib wrote a book called Adventure Capitalism - A History of Libertarian Exit which spells out the libertarian aim to develop the ocean for real estate.
@horton_official
theguardian.com/environment/20… "The goal is to live in the ocean, for ever. To have permanent human settlements in all oceans across the world"
Mike Shackleford, chief operating officer, Deep

How far they have come...
Starmer stated back in 2022 that trickle-down economics “is a piss take”.
In 2021, Reeves stood in front of the Labour party conference and declared that she would be the “first-ever green chancellor”.
2024-2025
This year Reeves sacked the head of the regulatory body the CMA, and replaced him with the former head of Amazon UK, Doug Gurr.
In April 2024 6 days into office, Rachel Reeves refused permission for the National Audit Office to carry out an investigation into Englands 48 SEZs and 8 Freeports, despite a House of Commons committee report citing lack of transparency, ignoring the Nolan principles, and serious questions over value for taxpayers money.
Yet Starmer has just handed over corporate governance powers to 700 lobbyists from the most malign criminally corrupt companies on the planet, Blackrock being the cherry on top of the neoliberal cake.
When neoliberals talk of dismantling big government, and carving up nations into more manageable pieces under corporate rule, Starmer and Reeves have in a few months betrayed the Labour Party's core foundations of being a party for ordinary working people.
What comes next used to be the stuff of libertarian fringe fantasies, namely deregulated SEZs, Freeports, and charter cities that are going to create modern-day slavery for British citizens.

https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1885622289976484235

My notes from yesterday's (29th Jan) public speaking event on SEZs and Freeports with @JimFunnel1 and @PlymouthGreens it was great with a very lively Q&A session.
Notes
I will talk about what you won’t see on the many council and corporate websites, that are backing Sunak and Starmer’s nationwide rollout of 74 deregulated SEZs and 12 Freeports.
You would think that the UK MSM would be on top of exposing the true nature of councils and companies embroiled in the setup of free zones. The complexity of free zones is their camouflage which needs proper and urgent scrutiny. The public and their respective communities are not being sufficiently informed about the impacts free zones are notoriously known for implementing. At their worst free zones remove the obstacles of regulation and democracy for profit gains at the expense of local community infrastructure and preservation of the environment.

What is a Special Economic Zone (SEZ)?
An SEZ is a designated region 'freed' from the host country's regulations, including suspension of the rule of law which is then tailored for financial gains, and extraction purposes, be that minerals, fossil fuels, or in the case of Dartmoor, Lithium.
The United States Geological Survey identifies “Dartmoor as one of the top five lithium-enriched granite areas worldwide. Dartmoor is now a part of The Plymouth and South Devon Freeport/SEZ. The granite in which the lithium-rich waters are found stretches from the Isles of Scilly 25 miles off the Cornish coast to Dartmoor in Devon.
The Dartmoor National Park wasn’t even aware of the fact it was incorporated in the Freeport/SEZ which is 75km in diameter. Corporations are trusted to ‘self-regulate' inside the boundaries of the SEZ, meaning they can create their own rules, this is known as Adam Smith’s ‘Invisible Hand’ something the EU implicitly rejects as antithetical to the Single Market.
SEZs can house a Freeport, an airport, whole towns, entire cities, and rural areas under a ‘private/public governed authority.’
The UK’s 74 SEZs range from 34 to 75km in diameter. Dartmoor is the biggest. SEZs are expansionist by nature, as businesses chase 10-year tax breaks, and a raft of deregulations that favour the private sector. Companies inside the boundaries of SEZs compete in an unlevel playing field without contributing anything to communities other than job displacement, modern day slavery, environmental pollution, and badly made products.
So, think of an SEZ as a room within a room, or a state within a state.

What is a Freeport?
Traditionally, a port is publically owned and regulated, and deals mainly with transhipment, importing and exporting goods around the world. Publicly owned ports come under port governance where local control over port infrastructure prevents profiteering.
Freeports are privately owned and are all about extending tax and customs advantages to businesses. Freeports come with relaxed laws and by extension relaxed enforcement of those laws.
In terms of what Freeports can achieve, there is no evidence to confirm that Freeports encourage economic growth or provide jobs for local people. Freeports in the wrong hands share similarities with organized crime syndicates. Illegal activity comes in numerous forms, weapons trading, drugs, stolen art, private banking, moving/storing of gold, money laundering, human trafficking, and the scrapping of minimum wage amd Human Rights abuses.
UK Freeports are run by stand-alone corporations with a future scope and incentive to expand into the surrounding SEZ territory.
All UK SEZs and Freeports were set up with secondary legislation, which means pretty much zero Parliamentary and public scrutiny.

Now for some numbers.
There 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 took place between 2021 and 2022.
Labour MPs, Mayors, councillors, Lords, and Baronesses were active board members of Sunak and Truss’s nationwide SEZs/Freeports consortia.
Each SEZ recieves £160 million in State aid multiplied by 74 = £11 billion 840 million
Each Freeport receives £25 million seed capital which is private money multiplied by 12 = £300 million
Note that Sunak’s flagship Brexit SEZ/Freeport at Teeside has already spent £560 million of taxpayers money. Profits are split 9/10 in favour of the private sector.
Those figures are actually not big enough for long term investment, but are sufficient for a boom-and-bust approach.

What is the difference between Freeports/SEZs in the EU and the UK?
It comes down to EU regulations on State Aid where the European Commission is charged with ensuring that State aid rules are applied and observed equally across all the Member States to prevent fragmentation and distortion of its Single Market. The EU prohibits govts of member states from allocating public subsidies to companies of their choosing as a profit motive.
The EU cannot accept a country that has laws in place that create unfair competition by setting up an unlevel playing field.
This is why Keir Starmer says "There will be no rejoining the EU in my lifetime.”

Labour along with the Tories know that Brexit has rendered the UK capital hungry and desperate for growth. The duopoly are selling off UK sovereignty and vast swathes of territories to foreign capital such as Blackrock, DP World, PEEL Group, Deloitte, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and many more corporations with atrocious track records in fraud, tax evasion, human rights abuses, environmental pollution, weapons smuggling, stolen art, and all the while perpetuating the 40-year-old lie that is Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). All public services are privatized, councils are bankrupted and asset-stripped ready for private equity to step in and buy up, on the cheap, all public buildings, agricultural, business, and residential properties under mass Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs). Last October 2024, the Labour Govt department for Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government quietly published an update on Compulsory Purchase Orders, called Guidance on the Compulsory Purchase, it is 189 pages long.

What I call ‘Zone Fever’ was smuggled inside the Brexit Trojan Horse. The transition period after Brexit is currently busy with preparing the UK for total privatization.

It gets worse. What is ISDS and LCIA?
Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) allows corporations to sue Govts for billions in damages when a corporation believes its rights have been infringed upon; such as polluting the environment, shredding workers rights, and making faulty products. ISDS is a secretive corporate justice court that can bypass a country’s domestic courts and sovereignty, it was set up by The World Bank in 1966, it has a committee of 3 individuals, none of whom have a law degree. ISDS also has another UK equivalent known as the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), which is written into the 25-year licenses of all 86 UK free zones. ISDS is written into the UK's post-Brexit CPTPP free trade deals. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Retained EU Law bill sunsetted 600 laws on 31st December 2023 with thousands more for the chop by 2026, the 3 main targets were employment rights, food safety and environmental laws. The REUL Bill is now in Keir Starmer’s intray.
Read Silent Coup - How Corporations Overthrew Democracy by @kennardmatt and @ClaireProvost for more on ISDS and SEZs.

What is the ideology behind Freeports and SEZs?
The current ideology embraced by Sunak, Truss, Starmer, and Reeves, hails from the US, the goal is to abolish the centralised state and replace it with more manageable small states all of which are privatised. This has its roots in empire-building and British colonialism from the East India Company in 1600 through to Hong Kong and Singapore in the mid-1800s, where the British installed dozens of Freeports, bringing with them their own laws, and courts, this was known as ‘China’s century of humiliation.’
In the 1980s Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe’s aim was to turn the UK into 1 big tax haven filled with dozens of free zones, subdividing the land for corporate rule, but they came up against the EU’s rules on State aid and SEZs.

What comes next after Freeports and SEZs?
Freeports and SEZs are stepping stones to charter cities, these are a type of city in which a guarantor from a developed country would create a city within a developing host country.
The public is basically paying for the privatisation of their own towns, rural areas, and cities.
Once the UK’s Freeports and SEZs have sufficiently established themselves, they grow by penetrating the social collective fabric of a region, a charter (private) city will eclipse and replace the ‘public city.’ Charter cities are hotbeds of corporate corruption as governance powers are fully handed over to CEOs, under ’localised freedoms.’ Cardiff would compete with Birmingham, Plymouth would compete with Glasgow, and so on, tax rates and laws between cities would wildly vary causing fiscal anarchy and societal chaos.

List of companies working with the 3 councils of Plymouth, South Devon and South Hams.
Babcock secures a multi-million pound contract in partnership with Devon defence vehicle designer and manufacturer Supacat. This contract will deliver 90 new jobs and enables Babcock to expand its operations in the Freeport’s South Yard tax site
Tax benefits are available at the Freeport’s 3 tax sites, located at:
South Yard, the centrepiece of the Freeport’s innovation hotbed, offering industrial units and a mezzanine office space within a purpose-built innovation centre
Langage, providing a variety of industrial units focused on advanced manufacturing and logistics
Sherford, aimed at logistics purposes, providing warehousing, storage, and engineering space.

Last October 2024 The Labour Goverment published a 189 page document on Compulsory Purchase Orders, CPOs apply to business, agricultural, and residential properties.

The rollout of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and freeports in the UK has sparked concerns over the potential loss of public autonomy. Here are some key downsides:

Reduced Democratic Oversight: SEZs and freeports often operate under different regulatory frameworks, which might bypass standard democratic processes. This can lead to a situation where local and even national laws are less effective or applicable within these zones, reducing public and elected officials' oversight over economic activities, land use, and environmental regulations. The governance of these zones can be outsourced to private entities or special bodies, which might not prioritize public interest over corporate benefits.

Erosion of Public Control Over Land and Resources: These zones can lead to significant portions of land being controlled by private interests with minimal public input, potentially leading to a scenario where public land is sold or leased under favourable terms for private entities rather than for the benefit of local communities. There have been allegations and concerns about land deals in areas like Teesside, where public land was transferred to private hands at very low costs, suggesting a loss of control over public assets. Mayoral development corporations can bring about regeneration by assembling land and providing infrastructure over a wide area to secure or encourage its development by others. A Mayoral development corporation may do anything it considers appropriate for the purposes of its object (i.e. securing the regeneration of land in its area). Likewise, it may have powers to acquire land in its area by compulsory purchase.

Taxation and Financial Transparency: The tax incentives provided to businesses within SEZs and freeports can be seen as a form of corporate welfare, where public revenue is foregone in favor of private profit. This can lead to reduced public funds for services, and there's also the worry about these zones becoming havens for tax evasion or money laundering, further diminishing public financial control.

Impact on Workers' Rights: Deregulation in free zones often leads to a rollback of labour standards, potentially undermining workers' rights as companies could exploit the regulatory leniency to reduce wages or bypass labour protections. This has been a point of contention, with critics arguing that the drive for economic growth might come at the cost of workers' well-being.

Environmental Regulations: Freeports and SEZs deregulatory frameworks lead to ecological degradation or pollution, as the drive for economic activity overshadows environmental considerations. There have been reports of environmental concerns linked to freeport developments, like in Teesside, where industrial activities have been linked to marine life damage.

Economic Displacement: There's a risk that SEZs and freeports might not create new economic activity but rather displace existing businesses from outside the zones to within, leading to no net economic gain but rather a redistribution that favors areas with freeport status, potentially at the expense of other regions.

Public Autonomy in Policy Making: The concentration of economic activity and decision-making power in these zones could lead to a scenario where national or local economic policies are influenced or dictated by the needs and demands of these zones, reducing the autonomy of public institutions in shaping economic strategies that should serve broader public interests.
In summary, while SEZs and Freeports aim to spur economic development, the potential downsides include significant losses in public autonomy over economic, environmental, and social governance, with concerns about transparency, equity, and democratic control being paramount.

David Powell January 2025 The above notes are from a public meeting about SEZs and Freeports with the Plymouth Green Party on 29th January 2025, it's free to read on my Substack. Please subscribe and if possible upgrade to paid, I'm an unpaid volunteer who has been exposing SEZs for over 6 years.
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europeanpowell.substack.com/p/my-notes-fro…

Rachel Reeves embraces 'job displacement' in her 'zoning scheme'
Rachel 'I'm tough on benefit scroungers but love corporate scroungers' Reeves just said this "“At the moment, you’ve got people who live five or six miles out of Leeds or Birmingham or Manchester who aren’t able to take up jobs in those places"
Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham are all now deregulated Special Economic Zones, signed off by Labour with the Tories during the bidding period which took place between 2021 and 2022.
Now read this from the UK Govt's website👇🏻👀
researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05…
A common problem of deregulated SEZs is known as 'job displacement'. A common argument against Enterprise Zones is that they result in 'job displacement' rather than job creation – i.e., existing local companies relocate to enterprise zones to take advantage of financial incentives, keeping their existing workforce rather than firms from outside the area relocating and creating new jobs. A 2011 report by the Work Foundation found that “up to 80%” of jobs created by enterprise zones in the 1980s were in fact “taken from other places.”

Starmer's changed Labour Party is fundamentally dishonest about this whole SEZ policy, they say they inherited it from the Tories, which is a flat-out lie.
Read that ridiculous @guardian puff piece on Rachel Reeves 'zoning scheme' where she connives to mention 'zoning schemes' without referring to the collusion her changed Labour Party had with the Tories nationwide country changing SEZs experiment in corporate governance during the bidding process between 2021 and 2022.

A 2019 report by the Centre for Cities on Enterprise Zones in England found that between 2011 and 2017 found that the total new jobs were only around one-quarter of the estimates produced by the Treasury in 2011 and “at least one-third of the jobs created have come as a result of the move of businesses from elsewhere, rather than the creation of new posts in new businesses.” Jobs created Enterprise Zones were found to be “overwhelmingly low skilled” and Enterprise Zones have been unsuccessful in attracting high-skilled economic activity “that would help to change the economic make-up of the economies into which they have been placed.”
This is a corporate coup, Zone Fever was resurrected by the duopoly immediately after Brexit, UK SEZs had to abide by the EU's rules on State aid that prohibit member states from giving public money to companies for profit motives.
Once again from the UK Govt's website, 'The demise of EZs was attributed to the effects of delays owing to
European Commission State Aid regulations'
theguardian.com/global/2025/ja…

One of the key risks in Freeports and SEZs is that the same secrecy around the storage of art in Freeports can potentially apply to DRUGS AND WEAPONS because of "confidentiality, the high level of monetary transactions, the unfamiliarity of enforcement agencies with values and the portable nature of art itself all contribute to the art market being a suitable vehicle for illegal activity.
As other money-laundering techniques are coming under closer scrutiny, it has been suggested that smugglers, drug traffickers and arms dealers are increasingly turning to the art market" .
In 2010 the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, an intergovernmental body based at the headquarters of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, published a report claiming that free-trade zones, which include free ports, were a 'money-laundering and terrorist-financing threat' partly due to inadequate safeguards, relaxed oversight and weak inspections.
Clamping down on problems such as tax evasion and money laundering has become a matter of the utmost urgency. In this context, the Panama Papers drew attention to the dubious role of free zones, and in particular of free ports, as repositories of artworks and other valuables.
Some media reports pointed to the connection between the international art trade and offshore secrecy, for example suggesting that 'arts buyers and sellers use the same structures to remain anonymous in the global financial system as dictators, politicians and fraudsters'.
The UK is the second largest exporter of arms in the world, and is home to the largest number of private military and security companies in the world. europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/155721…

The Green Party has stated that it is 100% against deregulated SEZs and Freeports.
greenparty.org.uk/2024/09/08/gre…
Yesterday I posted a previous version of this tweet that was incorrect, my apologies.
There is still the matter of 2 Green Party councillors. Rachel Eburne of Green Party Mid Suffolk is a member of Freeport East Limited (appointed 4th July 2023) under section a) Any unpaid directorships
baberghmidsuffolk.moderngov.co.uk/mgDeclarationS…
midsuffolk.greenparty.org.uk/people/your-gr…
On 13th August 2024 Councillor Naomi Graham, Green Party Wirral's register of interests, reads 'Self Employed - Project Manager' under the heading 'Yourself.'
Next to that column, under the heading 'Your Partner', 'PEEL Land and Property Development Director' is listed.
democracy.wirral.gov.uk/mgDeclarationS…
In the interests of transparency, I'm asking The Green Party if they could please shed some light on the above councillor positions?
@natalieben @ZackPolanski @SusanChubb1 @TheGreenParty @MidSuffolkGreen


Green Party Councillor Naomi Graham's husband is Richard Mawdsley Director of Development for Peel L&P's Wirral Waters.

peelwaters.co.uk/meet-the-team/
PEEL Group has s a private company with assets of £2.3 billion, PEEL Groups controversies include environmental pollution, tax evasion, on site fatalities, peat extraction, greenhouse gas emissions, fracking collusion between Peel, Greater Manchester Police and Salford Council, excessive influence on affairs and development in the Liverpool region, claiming Peel "blurred the boundaries between public and private interests"

peelports.com/about-us/inves…

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peel_…

I’m frequently asked about my sources for the State aid figures allocated for Sunak and Starmer’s joint SEZs/Freeports experiment in corporate governance.
All the details are on the UK Government’s website.
👇🏻👀
gov.uk/guidance/inves… In total there are 74 deregulated Special Economic Zones across the UK.
48 SEZs in England
18 SEZs in Scotland
8 SEZs in Wales
In total there are 12 Freeports.
8 Freeports in England
2 Freeports in Scotland
2 Freeports in Wales
74 x £160 million = £11 billion 840 million in State aid which is public money.
12 x £25 million = £300 million seed capital
Note that Teeside SEZ/Freeport has already spent £560 million of taxpayers money. Profits are split 9/10 in favour of the private sector.

@Guardian keep presenting only one side of the 'economic growth' narrative, it goes like this companies don't like paying their fair share of taxes, they don't like the rise in National Insurance Contributions (NICs), they don't like wage rises for their workers, it will mean less profits for those at the top'.
But the other side of the story is about 10 year corporate tax breaks in special economic zones (SEZs) for example Employer National Insurance Contributions relief.
Know that companies in SEZs are already pushing to extend the tax breaks beyond the set deadlines.
From the UK Govt's website (Note: this page is out of date there are 48 SEZs in England not 13)
gov.uk/guidance/inves…

https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1874382121952739707

Did you know that Labour MPS, Mayors, councillors, Lords, and Baronesses signed off on Sunak and Truss's SEZs/Freeports as board members of their nationwide free zones consortia between 2021 and 2022? So when Labour say they inherited the Tories free zones they are flat-out lying to the public. Labours Metro Mayor Andy Burnham signed off on the Manchester SEZ. Labours Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram signed off on the Liverpool SEZ and Freeport. Former FM Mark Drakeford signed off on 8 SEZs and 2 Freeports with Sunak, present at the signing was Shanker Singham, known as the brains behind Brexit.

Once again the Guardian ignores zone fever, its long history which is part and parcel of for its current influence over UK Govt policy regarding free zones.
Not one mention of deregulated privately run special economic zones which are the criminally corporate bedrock of Dubai's economy in the article.
It is also clear that Wiki has been censored to not reveal the harsh human rights, smuggling, and environmental abuses that are key facets of zoning in Dubai/UAE.
theguardian.com/world/2024/dec… Starmer's changed Labour Party are working with major stakeholders from dozens of companies and are being advised by governance consultancy's who specialise in deregulatory frameworks for Special Economic Zones, Locus Economica is one such consultancy. locuseconomica.com
Locus Economica worked very closely with the Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai, our former Queen officiated at the opening ceremony of the Free zone in 1979. Jebel Ali Freezone is the flagship zone of DP World.
Welcome to Brexit dystopia where deregulation that follows the culling of EU/UK retained laws on employment rights, food safety, and environmental protections were shredded on 31st Dece 2023, with 1000's more for the chop by 2026.
x.com/EuropeanPowell…

It’s official. Labour ALREADY has a worse track record on corporate lobbying than the Tories did.
Of 12 recommendations for government transparency and the lobbying register on Spotlight on Corruption’s ‘scorecard‘, the Tories fully met three, while Labour has fully met just one proposal.
thecanary.co/uk/analysis/20… Look at the tables for from Spotlight on Corruption, Labour appalling lack of transparency.
The ethics committee also said that the government should incorporate all transparency releases into a single searchable database. Labour may have backtracked here and has made no public commitment to such a database.
spotlightcorruption.org/wp-content/upl…

UK farmers mean absolute zero in the US/UK free trade deal, Starmer will like the spineless servile lackey he is, throw the UK under the US bus, destination Vassal State.

theguardian.com/politics/2024/… Trump already pressuring UK to agree Free Trade deal, Starmer will dance to his tune because Blackrock will order him to do so as well.
Watch Trump and Musk's 'free cities' turbocharge in 2025, UK 74 SEZs will follow suit and become charter city/company towns and privatise citizenship, 1 vote will equal 1 share. UK totally fucked under Zone Fever.

Want to know how and why the left has been extinguished from Starmer’s ‘changed’ Labour Party? Find out which politicians from Cons and Labour are members of the British American Project (BAP) set up in the 1980’s, the group does not formally disclose its funders or members.
A key component of the establishments smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn was a secretive US embassy group formed in the early 1980s called the British American Project whose focus was to curtail anti-American drift' in The Labour Party.
In June 2019, then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited the UK and was recorded saying privately: “It could be that Mr Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. You should know, we won’t wait for him (Corbyn) to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”
declassifieduk.org/the-secretive-…
‘BAP’s aim was to push British progressives into a pro-American political position at a time when the CIA was worried about the strength of the Labour left and its ‘anti-American’ views’.
declassifieduk.org/the-secretive-… Three senior Labour politicians have recently joined a secretive lobby group which was set up in coordination with the US embassy in London to cultivate the British left Four senior members of Boris Johnson’s administration were also made fellows this year while working inside the UK government.
The BAP’s aim was to push British progressives into a pro-American political position at a time when the CIA was worried about the strength of the Labour left and its ‘anti-American’ views.

UM, so that growth thing Reeves and Starmer are constantly banging on about, who is that for exactly?
The mortgage payments of half of UK homeowners will rise over the next three years, leaving 4.4 million households facing extra pressure on their finances, the Bank of England has said.
theguardian.com/business/2024/… Policymakers also released the results of their first stress test into the shadow banking sector. It found that hedge funds, pension funds and other companies in the largely unregulated sector were at risk of amplifying market shocks and triggering a £17bn asset sell-off.
The exercise, the first in the world by a central bank, tracked how non-bank financial institutions – often referred to as the shadow banking sector – would react in a short and sharp shock affecting financial markets.
Step up Starmer & Blackrock Ltd, the UK is going to be privatized as zone fever carves up the UK into 86 free deregulated zones with tax breaks for companies set at 10 years including licenses for a quarter of a century.
Game Over Brexit Britain
x.com/EuropeanPowell…

Dear UK people, Starmer has announced that he and Blackrock have formed a government partnership, why the hell are you not reacting to this news? Do you realize what this means? The UK is going to be privatised! Councils defunded, NHS defunded, public services defunded, military heavily funded, welfare benefits defunded, the wealthy heavily funded, Net Zero defunded, 86 free zones funded, it all adds up and points to one thing, total privatisation.
researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05…

The MSM will continue to fail in its duty of responsibility to the public over revealing what's really behind the duopoly's 86 deregulated SEZs, Freeports (soon to be Free cities, now Trumop is back)
Within the pages of William Rees-Mogg and James Davidsons 1997 book 'The Sovereign Individual - How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State' was a template that saw the birth of a new exit space for libertarians to virtually occupy, it was a digital public space that was rapidly privatised, the internet.
The intention was to destroy the nation-state by subverting the freedoms of online public access by corporatising and politicising them for exorbitant profit.
Digital regulation was and still is in its infancy, the rise of the internet proved to be the perfect transition period for venture capitalists to exploit. In this scenario, the elites would delete national identity, along with a proclamation that they didn't owe ordinary citizens 'anything'.
Ordinary citizens were regarded as both 'parasites and predators' on taxes and profits, the redistribution of wealth under the terms of the social contract was to be torn up along with the shredding of the EU's protectionist laws and regulations under the still ongoing REUL Bill, (remember Sunak's video where he paper shredded EU/UK laws and regulations?)
es paid rent to Amazon, Google, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Musk. Frontier capitalism has morphed from physical land grabbing to digital land-grabbing, we now have cloud capitalism and digital techno feudalist overlords.

Deloitte's revenue in 2023 was $64.9 billion, here's a page from their website gleefully eyeing the UK's 74 SEZs and 12 Freeports and the numerous tax breaks for corporations.
Deloitte has an atrocious track record of hacking employees data, theft of intellectual property, serial fraud, filing misleading reports into the Tobacco Industry, added credibility to the tobacco industry's effort to undermine the Australian Government's plain cigarette packaging legislation
In September 2017, The Guardian reported that Deloitte suffered a cyberattack that breached the confidentiality of its clients and 244,000 staff, allowing the attackers to access "usernames, passwords, IP addresses, architectural diagrams for businesses and health information".
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on 29 September 2022 that Shanghai-based Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Certified Public Accountants LLP (Deloitte-China) had agreed to pay $20 million to settle charges relating to failures in complying with requirements for auditing US companies in China and Chinese companies in the US.
Deloitte was awarded a $44 million no-bid contract by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States to build a website to manage scheduling, inventory, and reporting for COVID-19 vaccination. However, the website functioned poorly, leading very few states to adopt it for their vaccination management.
A Deloitte network firm named Brightman Almagor Zohar & Co, sometimes known as Deloitte Israel, gave an unqualified audit opinion on the accounts of Tingo Group, Inc for 2022. This became controversial when a report by Hindenburg Research identified "obvious errors" in Tingo's financials, making Hindenburg "suspect Deloitte Israel missed or rushed through procedures that would have uncovered important findings", and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Tingo Group and others of a fraud of "staggering" scope.
Deloitte is in bed with the duopoly and is very happy about Starmer's changed Labour Party's deregulation plans announced at their recent 'Investment Summit' deregulation is catnip for malign criminal corporations setting up shop subsidised with public money at £160 million per SEZ in the UK's 86 Free zones.
taxscape.deloitte.com/article/freepo… Deloitte had acted as internal auditor at construction and services giant Carillion before it went into liquidation in January 2018. The "excoriating" and "damning" (The Guardian) final report of the Parliamentary inquiry into Carillion's collapse was published on 16 May 2018, and criticised Deloitte for its involvement in the company's financial reporting practices.
Carillion grew from the hot new ideas of the 2000s, and it collapse is the cold wet patch left by the public service policies followed under the Blair, Brown and Cameron governments. Blair said his “third way” meant “Investment must drive radical reform” of the public sector: Labour spent more on public services, but expanded privatisation by insisting new “private partners” run public services.
When David Cameron became Prime Minister in 2010, Tory-led governments embraced and expanded the New Labour policy of handing public services to private “partners”, but under austerity reduced the amount they spent, making the situation even worse.
Zone Fever has arrived by stealth in Brexit Britain, just know that Trump is a big fan of zoning aka carving out private jurisdictions and building free cities for his kind of right-wing customer/citizen.
vice.com/en/article/the…

Still able to go it alone UK?
Rejoining the EU is the only option if you want your economy to grow, and not be destroyed by Trump, the UK must get its act together and be on the right side of history.🇪🇺 “The UK is a small, open economy and would be one of the countries most affected,” Kaya said. NIESR has estimated that over two years the UK inflation rate would be 3-4 points higher while interest rates would be 2-3 points higher.
theguardian.com/us-news/2024/n…

A corporate coup means everything is up for grabs, the UK is desperate and capital-hungry after Brexit. Deregulated SEZs were a Sunak and Truss initiative fully backed by Labour MPs, Mayors, councillors, Lords, and Baronesses, who were active board members of the Tories nationwide SEZs/Freeports consortia.
Free zones = privatisation on steroids, that's all public infrastructure within the zone, schools, hospitals, public utilities, police, housing, councils.
Free zones are regulated in the EU to prevent govts of member states from giving advantages to companies by exploiting State aid for profit motives without giving anything back to local infrastructure, deregulated free zones distort markets and create an unlevel playing field, this is Brexit.
europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes…
State aid is public money, UK tax payers are subsidizing the dismantling of their public services.
UK 74 SEZs and 12 Freeports are licensed for a quarter of a century with tax breaks for companies set at 10 years.
Each SEZ gets £160 million in State aid, multiplied by 74 = £11 billion 840 million
Sunak's flagship Brexit Freeport in Teesside has already spent half a billion of taxpayers money, profits are split 90/10 in favour of the private sector. Rinse and repeat across all UK free zones.
UK free zones contravene EU laws and regulations on State aid, this information is on the Govt's website, it explains why SEZs failed under Thatcher.
researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05…
WTO rules on State aid are more 'flexible' for developing countries, but massive deregulation benefits corporations and not workers, this is the price ordinary people pay trying to stay afloat with 2, 3 more jobs, it will get far worse once the 86 free zones are fully operational.
It is an absolute travesty that the UK MSM is ignoring the dangers of deregulated SEZs, scores of councils collapsing through engineered insolvency are catnip for private equity to step in and 'rescue' entire regions from the 'oppressive constraints' democracy.
On top of this mass Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) are taking place in Birmingham, and Cornwall, 6 SEZs in Birmingham, 16 SEZs in Cornwall.
x.com/EuropeanPowell…
CPOs apply to business, agricultural and residential properties.
x.com/EuropeanPowell…
The state is being abolished, the most lucrative line of business is between malign corporations and govts who despise an egalitarian system of democracy. Wage share and profit share of GDP under managed capitalism are kept in balance, not so when deregulated SEZs hollow out social governance and replace it with corporate governance.
Labour are continuing the Tories SEZs policy with the same contempt right-wing libertarians harbour for the nation-state that hands over social governance powers to corporations.
Starmer's changed Labour Party are in hoc to Blackrock, Deloitte, Blackstone, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, the IEA, Adam Smith Institute, Centre for Policy Exchange, Starmer's Labour an absolute disgrace, they have betrayed the core foundations of the social contract, the impacts on ordinary working people will be catastrophic for decades to come.
thecanary.co/uk/analysis/20…

https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1815625525680882119