Industrial Strategy Zones: the Trojan Horse for a Corporate Coup

The Tories 12 Freeports, and 74 SEZs are to join forces with Starmer's AI Growth Zones, while the public were completely left out of the decision-making process.

When Keir Starmer’s government announced its AI Growth Zones earlier this year, the headlines were all about “jobs”, “innovation”, and “future-proofing Britain”. But the real story was hidden in plain sight: this wasn’t just about AI, and it wasn’t just about technology. It was about hardwiring a corporate-first model of governance into Britain’s economic geography by stealth.

They arrive silently, no fanfare, no public debate, no parliamentary scrutiny. But across Birmingham, Cornwall, Dorset, Norfolk, Suffolk, and beyond, a corporate takeover is underway. Freeports, Investment Zones (SEZs), and AI Growth Zones are not just coexisting, they’re consolidating into a single threat: Industrial Strategy Zones (ISZs). Governments of all stripes are enabling this, using primary and secondary legislation to bypass democratic oversight. And at every turn, public interest, transparency, and environmental protection are the casualties.

Primary law as a rubber stamp, secondary law as the getaway car

The foundation for this plan wasn’t laid in 2025, it was hatched back in 2021. The Finance Act of that year created the legal framework for 12 deregulated Freeports: primary legislation was rubber-stamped, granting sweeping ministerial powers to designate “special tax sites” without the need for further Acts of Parliament. The rest, the publicly omitted details, the designations, the economic distortions, were smuggled in via statutory instruments (SIs) under secondary legislation

Unlike Acts, SIs rarely make front-page news. They aren’t debated line-by-line by MPs, they don’t trigger months of committee scrutiny, and most pass into law without the public or press even noticing. That’s how Freeports and so-called “Special Economic Zones” (SEZs), already riddled with governance scandals in Teesside, were green-lit at scale, all without serious democratic oversight.

Now, AI Growth Zones (AIGZs) are being grafted onto that same legislative machinery. They weren’t created by an Act of Parliament. They don’t have their own dedicated statute. They simply slot into the deregulatory superstructure that Freeports built, this is the perfect Trojan Horse for the post-Brexit corporate coup.

Legislation: The Trojan Horse Has Arrived

• Primary Law (Finance Act 2021) quietly authorized the creation of “special tax sites” — Freeports and Investment Zones — wielded by Ministers to carve out deregulated economic sanctuaries.

• Secondary Law (Statutory Instruments) delivered the actual designations, tax breaks, customs carve-outs, and sunset provisions. These weren’t widely debated or reported—legislation without limelight, designed for stealth.

• AI Growth Zones (AIGZs) didn’t need new laws. Instead, they hitch a ride aboard the deregulation express—leveraging existing Freeport/SEZ frameworks.

• Industrial Strategy Zones (ISZs) are the final consolidation. Published as a bland administrative paper in June 2025, it merges Freeports, Investment Zones, SEZs, and AIGZs into one integrated engine of corporate-first governance.