The truth about the UK’s SEZs and Freeports experiment in corporate governance.

99% of the British public have no idea what a Special Economic Zone is or what is actually behind Starmer’s red lines over the UK’s future with the EU.

EUROPEANPOWELL

99% of the British public have no idea what a Special Economic Zone is. It’s high time they knew the truth about what is happening to UK infrastructure behind the constant distractions of MSM and government propaganda.

An SEZ is a designated region that has economic regulations separate from the host country, primarily designed to attract foreign economic investment. The EU has 82 SEZs, but the difference between EU SEZs and UK SEZs comes down to the legal and illegal distribution of State aid. State aid is public money and it is illegal for govts of member states to give this money to companies purely for the pursuit of profits without contributing back to local infrastructure.

If you read the EU Commission website on State aid and SEZs, it clearly says that the EU Parliament 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/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_BRI(2020)646164

Brexit meant the UK immediately defaulted to WTO rules, Sunak and Truss turbocharged the resurrection of 74 SEZs because of Brexit, up until that point SEZs were being phased out because they previously came up against…EU rules on State aid. Labour MPs, Mayors, councillors, Lords, and Baronesses signed off with Sunak and Shanker Singham on the free zones as board members of the Tories nationwide SEZs/Freeports consortia.

Here we are with Labour announcing more SEZs and more deregulation to come at their last Investment Summit. Did you vote for this? Do you recall seeing anything in Labour’s manifesto about SEZs and Freeports?

The UK’s SEZs represent a deregulatory race to the bottom. Here’s a link to a thread I posted all about WTO  https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1616373438028943361 and why WTO is seeking to privatize essential public services such as education, health care, energy and water. The WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services, or GATS has a list of +160 threatened services. Ring any bells people? Isn’t Brexit wonderful?

Back to SEZs, free zones carve out entire regions of a host country to install ‘localised freedoms’ this entails govts handing over governing powers to corporations who can ‘self-regulate’ inside the zones. Think of the private water companies track record on profiteering from disaster and apply that metric to all services you can think of, mending roads, education, schools, police, rubbish collections, NHS, fire services, parks, libraries and so on.

Know that something called ISDS, Investor-State Dispute Settlement is often embedded in SEZs contracts with corporations, especially foreign ones, this allows them to bypass domestic courts of sovereign nations and sue Govts for billions should that Govt take issue with a product that may poison consumers, or for pollution industrial. All 74 UK SEZs and 12 Freeports contain secondary legislation, meaning zero Parliamentary scrutiny. ISDS was written into all CPTPP Free Trade Deals.  https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1870974845300707658

All UK SEZs and Freeports give tax breaks to corporations for 10 years and are licensed for a quarter of a century. Now do you understand why Sir Keir_Starmer says no rejoining the EU, the Single Market and Customs Union with no Freedom of Movement?

The UK i sfast turning into a rogue state that has willingly sold its sovereignty to foreign capital. Zone Fever has arrived by stealth, the MSM refuses to investigate. I am one voice, a volunteer who in his free time is researching to expose what is clearly a corporate coup instrumented by the UK duopoly.  https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1870972698064773216

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This article (The truth about the UK’s SEZs and Freeports experiment in corporate governance.) was created and published by EuropeanPowell and is republished here under “Fair Use” 

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Even the UK Government’s own website says SEZs are bad news for the economy

Zone Fever is a Silicon Valley-style neocolonial project that is all about dismantling big govt and handing powers to corporations as the UK is carved up into tax havens.

EUROPEANPOWELL

This is from the UK Govts website.  https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05942/SN05942.pdf ‘Job displacement’ is a notorious feature of deregulated Freeports and SEZs. 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.” National Audit Assessment December 2013, the DCLG reported 4,649 jobs (as well as 2,965 construction jobs) have been created by Enterprise Zones in England, which it describes as “particularly underwhelming” in light of initial Treasury projections of 54,000.

In light of this shortfall, it recommends that concerned departments should “scrutinise thoroughly any forecasts of jobs its schemes will create before presenting them to Parliament and the public.

Lastly, The demise of SEZs was attributed to the effects of delays owing to European Commission State Aid regulations. Brexit has turbocharged SEZS and Freeports to exploit State aid which is public money, literally giving it to companies to increase their profits, this is illegal in the EU.

 

Each of the 74 SEZs receives £160 million in State aid multiplied by 74 = £11 billion 840 million.

Each of the 12 Freeports receives £25 million multiplied by 12 = £300 million Teesside Freeport has spent over £560 million of taxpayers money to date, profits are split 9/10 in favour of the private sector.

The UK is being privatised under Zone Fever, a Silicon Valley-style neocolonial project that is all about dismantling big govt and handing powers to corporations as the UK is carved up into tax havens.

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