Corporations setting up in the UK's deregulated SEZs are known for chasing 10-year 'tax holidays'

What's good for companies in SEZs becomes a living hell for workers and residents entrapped in these free zones.

Corporations setting up in deregulated SEZs are known for chasing 10-year 'tax holidays', reduced business rates, land grabbing via Compulsory Purchase Orders, banning Trade Unions, lowering of minimum wage, longer work hours, limited toilet breaks, excessive surveillance of workers, tiny state pensions due to companies not paying social security contributions to the state, and permanent sweatshop phases.

From the UK Govt's website https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/122185/pdf/#:~:text=Business%20rates%20–%20100%25%20relief%20on%20newly%20occupied%20or%20expanded%20premises.&text=Investment%20in%20plant%20and%20machinery,capital%20allowance%20for%20qualifying%20expenditure.&text=Investment%20in%20buildings%20–%20taxable%20profits,to%20100%25%20over%20ten%20years.

Stamp duty – 100% relief for land and buildings bought for commercial use or development. Business rates – 100% relief on newly occupied or expanded premises. Investment in plant and machinery – 100% first-year capital allowance for qualifying expenditure. Investment in buildings – taxable profits reduced by 10% a year of the value of qualifying non-residential investment, rising to 100% over ten years. Employer’s NI contributions – zero rate on new employees working on the site for at least 60% of their time, up to an earnings threshold of £25,000 p.a., for three years per employee.

Each Investment Zone in England is to be led by the Mayoral Combined Authority with the involvement of a wide range of local players. Local universities are expected to play a prominent role and local MPs are to be engaged in developing the plans. Central government’s approval will be required. The lead authority will be allowed to keep 100% of the increase in Business Rates on the Investment Zone sites for 25 years.

The glossy brochure version of free zones masks one key fact that Starmer announced a short while ago to 700 lobbyists during a webinar, that governance powers are to be handed over to corporations with the UK Govt taking a 'secondary position'.

This means companies signed up to SEZs can self-regulate under what is known in libertarian parlance as 'Adam Smith's Invisible Hand' Lastly, the State aid companies signed up for in the UK's 86 free zones is public money, ordinary people are paying to allow companies numerous corporate tax breaks, (see above) along with a deregulatory framework separate from the host country, companies now have the ability to make serious incursions into the public infrastructure without having to worry about public or parliamentary scrutiny, because secondary legislation was written into the 25-year licenses.

The UK's 86 free zones also have a secret corporate justice court that can bypass domestic courts during arbitration disputes where outcomes for corporations allow them to sue the govt for billions in damages, do you know what those damages are? They are when a company believes its rights to pollute the environment, create modern-day slavery, make faulty products have been infringed upon by the Govt.

The corporate justice court is called the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), there is also an equivalent mechanism known as Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) which was set up by The World Bank in 1966, ISDS was written into all post Brexit free trade deals known as CPTPP

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