Almost a year ago we highlighted the work being done by SALVO, Colette Walker and the ISP to raise awareness of the danger posed by Freeports and Special Economic Zones.
We don't watch as much mainstream media as we used to. Instead, we depend on social media to pick up bits and pieces of interest. Saves a lot of time. But the whole issue of Freeports and Special Economic Zones does not seem to be of much interest to the mainstream and so there is little 'trickle-down' of their take on it all.
What little hard information we can find seems to come via activists who have been aware of the issue for years and have been battling to raise awareness generally.
The most consistent and reliable voice we have encountered so far belongs to the Tweeter who uses the handle 'European Powell'.
Below are copies of some of his tweets, complete with original links. We hope readers will share this important source of information and, as requested by European Powell, give fair credit to him when sharing.
EuropeanPowell
Kate Forbes signed away Scotland's economy and collective sovereignty to Westminster, this opened the path for predatory corporations who will extract Scottish resources while paying little to no tax for the next 10 years.
SEZs are licensed for a quarter of a century and are subsidized with State aid (public money) to the tune of billions, SEZs are boom-and-bust rackets that are incredibly expensive to set up and maintain.
Each SEZ receives £160 million in State aid multiplied by 74 = £11 billion 840 million.Guess who foots the bill for the numerous clean-up programs after companies have made their profits, upped sticks, and left communities in ruin? The taxpayer of course.
Scotland now has 2 'Green' Freeports and 18 Special Economic Zones currently being installed without one shred of MSM scrutiny, these zones are privately run experiments in post-Brexit governance.
All of the UK's free zones also include secondary legislation which means zero parliamentary or public scrutiny on the many illicit and illegal activities that come with deregulated SEZs, and guess what? It's all down to Brexit.
6 days into office Rachel Reeves refused permission for the National Audit Office to investigate England's 48 SEZs and 8 Freeports despite the House of Commons Committee's April 2024 reports citing lack of transparency, ignoring of the Nolan principles, and serious questions over value for taxpayers money.
Let's remind ourselves how Scotland voted in the 2016 referendum...https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1785221551299629451
EuropeanPowell
The UK is being privatized, neoliberals view public services as 'small potatoes', their goal is 'countrypreneurship', no more public sector.
Private equity, and the likes of shadow bank mega-corps like Blackrock who own $10 trillion in assets have been courted by Reeves and Starmer who had meetings with dozens of corporations every day for a year before they won the GE, not only that Labour MPs, Mayors, councillors, Lords, and Baronesses were board members of Sunak and Truss's nationwide SEZs/Freeports consortia, including Andy Burnham, Steve Rotheram, and former FM of Wales Mark Drakeford.
Zone fever has arrived by stealth, the public were not consulted as to the dangers deregulated free zones will have on local communities and infrastructure.
As I keep saying secondary legislation is fully entrenched in UK SEZs, all 86 of them, meaning zero Parliamentary or public scrutiny as zone by zone the entire UK is carved up into tax havens run by companies subsidized to the tune of billions in illegal State aid (public money).
UK SEZs will not fly in the EU, the EU prohibits govt's of member states giving public money to companies of their choosing, this distorts the Single Market by creating an unlevel playing field.https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1834914432838709396…
'The EUParliament stresses that State aid should support ecological transformation and foster the development of services, knowledge, and infrastructure rather than providing support to specific companies'.https://europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/646164/EPRS_BRI(2020)646164_EN.pdf…
UK SEZs sabotage any chances of rejoining, this is why Starmer says no rejoin, no SM/CU/FOM.
You are trapped inside the zones for 25 years which is the duration of the licenses, your families will become the post-Brexit domestic workforce but with reduced employment rights, how is this possible?
On 31st Dec 2023 Mogg's REUL Bill revoked 600 EU/UK laws overnight, the 3 main categories were employment rights, food safety, and environmental protections with thousands more for the chop by 2026.
Now do you understand why Labour has betrayed the British people? They are forcing Brexit to work, no one voted for the privatization of the UK.
EuropeanPowell
We must continue bringing people together across communities via grassroots activism, when the facts are presented, when people's voices are heard, questions are asked and answered, the information is digested, people feel galvanized, they suddenly have hope.
Conversation is key, most people are not aware of what's happening, this is down to an appalling lack of media coverage.
Only a groundswell of nationwide activism and public protest can change this corporate grab of entire regions of the UK.
I have spoken (and will keep raising awareness both online and offline) at anti-SEZ/Freeport meetings across the UK, talked on radio interviews on Scottish Radio @HunterNorrie and also with @carolvorders, I have written for @BylinesCymru and have years of threads about the dangers of deregulated SEZs.
Audiences at meetings are at first bewildered, then outraged at what our so-called representative politicians are stealthily installing in their towns, cities and rural areas, they were not consulted, they were not informed, there was no mandate for carving up the country into SEZs.
British people still have their collective sovereignty (people power), they must exercise that power and come together to oppose free zones, time is running out.
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