Do you know the history of Special Economic Zones?
Why has the duopoly resurrected neocolonialist corporate carve-outs of the UK?
Do you know the history of SEZs? You should, because Brexit is turbocharging deregulation as the key framework for carving out extraterritorial enclaves with their own laws separate from the host country. The British Empire birthed SEZs way back in 1600 with the East India Company, cycling through to the 1850's with Hong Hong, and Singapore, this period was known as China's 'century of humiliation'. Brexit has resurrected the malign traits of SEZs for the 21st century, a perversion of 'freedom' under libertarian ideology with private banking, land grabbing, money laundering, weapons/drugs and human trafficking, appalling lack of employment rights, modern day-slavery, stolen art, demolition of union representation and banning of protest. Please join the dots, look at what's happening, the UK is becoming an authoritarian kleptocracy, SEZs are the ENDGAME for democracy as corporations and private equity accelerate their incursions into the public sector. Mass compulsory purchase orders in Birmingham which is host to 6 SEZs. https://x.com/EuropeanPowell/status/1815620618194198705
There are 74 SEZs and 12 Freeports currently being installed across England, Scotland, and Wales, all signed off by Labour including Andy Burnham, Steve Rotheram, and former FM Mark Drakeford who were board members of Sunak's SEZs/Freeports consortia. Guess what? You are paying for this stealth takeover of your towns, cities, and rural areas with State aid which is public money. Each SEZ receives £160 million, that's £11 billion 840 million in total. The 12 Freeports are housed inside SEZs ranging from 38 to 75km in diameter.
There are now 5,400 SEZs in the world, they have massively grown just as colonial regimes were winding down in the mid-20th century. 'By building urban oases of technocratic sanity, struggling nations could attract investment and jobs; private capital would flood in and foreign aid would not be needed'. Consider this in line with the UK's self-inflicted crashed economy, the fallout of Covid and Brexit, and you have the perfect recipe for disaster capitalists to completely reconfigure the UK into a rogue state over the next 50 years. https://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/308134/
SEZs are a resurrection of colonialism. Sunak studied under Prof.Paul Romer at Stanford University, Romer lectured on returning to colonialism with SEZs as the perfect framework for corporate takeovers precisely because SEZs carve out spaces within host countries. The most lucrative line of business around the world is between corporations and governments.
It is no coincidence that the Investor State Dispute Settlement was set up in 1966 by the World Bank as SEZs began to proliferate, this is a secretive corporate justice system, a private court beyond the reach of domestic laws, it is used by corporations to sue governments for breach of contract on SEZs and Freeports, previous cases have been challenges to environmental protections; minimum wage legislation; and taxes that companies don’t want to pay.
Thank you. I do not know who I can post this to who would believe this is actually happening. The Neo Colonialist era is upon us. That London, the birth place of the East India Company under the first Elizabethan Age, should be the at the centre of the rolling out of this fifty year plan to ‘legally’ carve up wealthy democratic nation states for private corporate profiteering in the second one, is criminally fitting. I just hope that your hard work at continually exposing this unfolding diseased nightmare takes root and stops it from spreading beyond GB’s borders.
I struggle with the fact that there is virtually no public interest inspection of this to any meaningful degree. It's inconceivable. All we can do is keep spreading the word. Thank you so much for the huge effort you're putting in to this.