UK Free Zones are the most underreported transformations of democratic governance in modern British history
EUROPEANPOWELL
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.
My Assessment
This is Structural State Capture, Not Policy Failure
The evidence I’ve compiled, combined with Private Eye’s Richard Brooks’ recent 8 page article on his Teesside investigation, reveals a systematic architecture of extraction rather than isolated corruption. The identical legal structures across 86 zones include; secondary legislation, arbitration clauses, self-regulation, 25-year contracts, none of which are accidental. They’re features designed to transfer sovereignty from democratic institutions to corporate entities while preventing accountability.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) refusal to answer my FOI is particularly telling. In a properly functioning democracy, basic questions about tax incentives for major infrastructure policy should be trivially easy to answer. The Section 12 claim suggests either:
- Deliberate administrative chaos to defeat transparency
- Non-existent due diligence before implementation
- Information too damaging to disclose
None of these options are acceptable for billions in public money.
The Brexit Connection is the Key
My research has uncovered what I think is the most important insight: Brexit wasn’t about sovereignty, it was about removing the EU regulatory barrier to this exact model of corporate capture.
The timeline is too perfect:
- 2016: Brexit vote
- 2019: Brexit completion
- 2021-2022: Zone bidding frenzy
- 2023: 600 EU laws revoked
- 2024-2025: Consolidation and AI expansion
EU State aid rules explicitly prohibit what UK zones are doing, £160 million per zone to companies of the government’s choosing. The 82 EU zones are strictly regulated precisely to prevent the Teesside pattern. The UK left that framework and immediately implemented 86 deregulated zones.
This is not coincidence. This is causation.
The Bipartisan Consensus is Damning
What makes this particularly insidious is the complete absence of Parliamentary opposition:
- Conservatives implemented it
- Labour mayors like Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram sat on Sunak’s SEZ boards while in opposition
- Starmer expanded it after election
- Reform UK wants more
When both major parties support policy, the democratic accountability mechanism fails. There’s no “vote them out” option. The public is trapped regardless of electoral outcome.
The 25-Year Timeline is Genius (Diabolically)
The zones don’t expire until 2048. This means:
- Six general elections will pass
- Entire generation grows up under corporate governance
- Unwinding becomes catastrophically expensive (arbitration claims)
- EU rejoin becomes legally impossible (incompatible contracts)
By the time public realizes what happened, reversal will be practically impossible.
The AI Growth Zones Complete the Picture
My FOI request exposed something crucial: the corporate capture isn’t stopping at physical infrastructure. AI Growth Zones represent the digital completion of the coup:
- Physical freeports: control land, logistics, manufacturing
- AI Growth Zones: control data, compute, surveillance capacity
Together they represent total infrastructure capture, both physical and digital sovereignty transferred to corporate control.
The fact that DSIT can’t (or won’t) answer basic questions about this suggests the AI dimension may be even less accountable than physical zones.
The Human Cost is Already Visible
- Two workers dead at Teesside
- 6,000 Birmingham residents facing CPO displacement
- Liverpool jobs collapsed from 4,000 to 300
- Councils bankrupted by business rate loss
This isn’t abstract policy, it’s economic violence against the most vulnerable.
And it’s only Phase 1-2. When Phase 3-4 extraction accelerates (2030s-2040s), the human cost will multiply.
The Media Silence is Inexplicable—Unless It’s Not
£35.75 billion in corporate subsidies. 86 zones. Constitutional transformation. Deaths. Systematic fraud exposed by independent review.
Near-total media silence.
Private Eye and The Canary stand almost alone. Why?
- Complexity as defense (too hard to explain)
- No political conflict (both parties support it)
- Corporate media interests
- Access journalism (don’t bite the hand that feeds)
- Brexit cognitive dissonance (admitting the truth)
Whatever the reason, the result is the same: the public doesn’t know this is happening.
The Ideological Framework is Terrifying
The Curtis Yarvin/”sovcorp” connection shows this isn’t opportunistic corruption, it’s ideologically driven transformation with intellectual backing, billionaire funding, and political influence at the highest levels (JD Vance, Peter Thiel, Trump administration).
The Heritage Foundation’s “rot the state from inside out” strategy is literally being implemented in the UK. The domino effect (Birmingham’s 6 SEZs + bankruptcy) proves it works exactly as designed.
International Implications
If this succeeds in the UK:
- Model will be exported to other democracies
- EU Single Market permanently weakened (UK as deregulated competitor)
- Global race to bottom accelerates
- Democratic governance proven defeatable
The UK is the test case for whether advanced democracy can be dismantled through complexity and bipartisan capture.
If it works here, it works everywhere.
What I Think Will Happen
Short Term (2025-2027)
Most Likely:
- My FOI refusal becomes minor news story, then forgotten
- More zones become operational
- AI Growth Zones expand
- Media continues ignoring
- Public remains unaware
Less Likely But Possible:
- Coordinated FOI campaign forces disclosure
- Whistleblower emerges with smoking gun documents
- Major incident (safety disaster, data breach) forces attention
- Parliamentary rebellion (unlikely given bipartisan support)
Medium Term (2027-2035)
The Reckoning:
- Teesside pattern repeats across multiple zones
- Promised jobs fail to materialize
- Corporate profits extracted, public left with costs
- Investigative journalism (more Teesside exposés)
- Public anger builds but legal lock-in prevents reform
Critical Question: Will anger translate to action before extraction is complete?
Long Term (2035-2048)
Two Scenarios:
Scenario A – Consolidation (70% probability):
- Corporate sovereignty normalized
- Democratic institutions hollowed out
- 2048 licenses renewed (”economic necessity”)
- UK becomes patchwork of corporate territories
- Model exported globally
Scenario B – Reversal (30% probability):
- Massive scandal forces reckoning
- Political movement emerges demanding reform
- Legal challenges succeed
- Compensation paid but zones unwound
- Constitutional reforms prevent repetition
The determining factor: Whether resistance mobilizes now (2025-2027) or later (2030s when damage obvious but irreversible).
Why Independent Research Matters
I’m documenting in real-time a transformation and reconfiguration of an entire country to a predatory corporate political model that the mainstream media won’t investigate, which Parliament won’t debate, and what regulators won’t regulate.
The FOI obstruction I’ve exposed is a piece of a much larger puzzle. Each piece I document, Liverpool failures, Birmingham CPOs, AI Growth Zone opacity, BlackRock conflicts, ideological frameworks, adds to a comprehensive picture.
Future historians will have a record. Future resistance movements will have a roadmap. Future democracies will have a warning.
The Core Question
Is what’s happening in the UK with free zones a policy mistake that can be corrected through normal democratic processes?
Or is it a constitutional coup that has already succeeded, with only the public recognition lagging?
I think it’s the latter. The structures are in place. The contracts are signed. The sovereignty has been transferred. The 25-year timeline has started.
The question now is whether enough people will realize what’s happened in time to mount effective resistance, or whether we’re just documenting the autopsy of British democracy.
I believe that resistance is still possible. I hope I’m right.
What keeps me uncertain is the bipartisan consensus. When both parties collaborate on systematic state capture, where does democratic accountability come from? Not elections (both parties the same). Not media (silent). Not courts (arbitration clauses). Not EU (left it).
All traditional accountability mechanisms have been neutralised.
That’s either brilliantly strategic or horrifyingly dystopian, probably both.
This article (UK Free Zones are the most underreported transformations of democratic governance in modern British history.) was created and published by EuropeanPowell and is republished here under “Fair Use”
••••
The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)
••••
Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.
••••
Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.
••••
Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Liberty Beacon Project.
Leave a Reply