Cassina 💙

🇬🇧🇮🇹 💙

[Neena Jha @DrNeenaJha]

I’m an NHS GP & I’m raising a 🚩

There’s a significant GP crisis in England

GPs are unemployed & can’t find work

Many having to leave their families to find work anywhere in the country

Ironically, there’s also a “GP shortage” in the NHS with patients struggling to get an appointment with a GP

So what’s going on?
GPs ARE BEING REPLACED!

Practices are being coerced by NHSE into hiring less qualified GP substitutes

Patients - your right to be seen by a doctor is being taken away & it’s happening NOW!

🚩🚩🚩🚩

[EuropeanPowell @EuropeanPowell]

People asking me for my notes from the Inverness Public Meeting today, I probably said a few extra things, but in any case, here they are👇🏻
Inverness notes on SEZs and Freeports March 2024
Zone fever has arrived in the UK
What are Freeports and SEZs (Special Economic Zones)?
Regular ports deal mostly in freight transshipment. Freight comes into a port area, is stored then processed, before being re-exported.
UK Freeports are privately owned tax havens whereas EU ports are publicly owned.

A Special Economic Zone is a designated region that can house a Freeport, airport, towns, entire cities, and rural areas under a ‘privately governed authority’.
So, think of an SEZ as a room within a room, a state within a state, or even a party within a party.
The UK post-Brexit is now like a Russian doll.
That’s what Special Economic Zones are.

The government claims that UK Freeports and SEZs are zones of prosperity, creating 1000s and 1000s of jobs, are green and environmentally friendly, but that is just to make them sound palatable to the public. They are in fact none of those things.

Take for example the claim that Freeports are facilitating offshore energy schemes. Those schemes were never dependent on Freeport status, they already existed anyway. Similar energy schemes are going on in ports in the EU that don’t require Freeport status.

Private vs Public.
Scottish Ports were privatised in the 1990s by Thatcher but had to comply with EU laws and regulations.
Fast forward to today, where Brexit Britain has turbocharged deregulation.
UK Freeports are run by a stand-alone corporations with a future scope and incentive to expand into the surrounding SEZ territory.

What is the ideology behind Freeports and SEZs?
The current ideology embraced by Sunak, Truss, Mogg, Badenoch hails from the US and fuses libertarianism with anarcho-capitalism, their goal is to abolish the centralised state and replace it with countless small states all totally privatised. This has its roots in empire-building and British colonialism. The East India Company in 1600, Hong Kong and Singapore in the mid-1800s, the Brits installed dozens of Freeports in those regions, bringing their own laws, and courts with them, this was known as ‘China’s century of humiliation’. In the 80s Thatcher’s aim was to turn the UK into 1 big tax haven and SEZ, but she came up against the EU.
The current Tories have taken that baton of ‘exit’ from Thatcher and several prominent economists and progressive right-wing radicals like Ayn(‘Ine’) Rand, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, and Antony Fisher. Freeports, SEZs and charter cities have long been the ideal templates to isolate away or ‘exit’ from Big Govt by establishing areas of a country as zones of exception to the host country.
Rishi Sunak studied at Stanford University, his mentor was Prof. Paul Romer who lectured on a return to colonialism via SEZs and charter cities.

What differentiates UK Freeports and SEZs from those in the EU?
UK Freeports and SEZs are being optimized for the deregulated private sector whereas Freeports and SEZs in the EU are publicly owned and strictly regulated to prevent corporations making astronomical profits, extracting resources, and not contributing anything back to local communities.
In Jan 2024 a UK Govt report on REUL(Retained EU Law) was published it stated ‘EU ports are publicly owned and are therefore unsuitable for the UK economy. The report stated that +600 pieces of EU/UK law were revoked across 3 main areas, employment, food safety, and the environment, thousands more are for the chop by 2026. The report went on to say that EU ports were publicly owned and incompatible with the UK economy. Sunak’s Freeports will be tax havens, Jeremy Hunt has declared Freeports and SEZs as tax-exempt for 10 years.

What do Freeports and SEZs have to do with Brexit?
SEZs and Freeports are all about ‘exit strategies’ .
Britain + Exit = Brexit.
Sunak’s 12 Freeports and 74 SEZs are currently carving out extraterritorial spaces the length and breadth of the UK. This is to perforate holes in the fabric of the nation, to lay waste to councils and public services, the more holes you cut out the more the zones will overlap and eventually privatise the UK. Thatcher tried out SEZs in the 1980s, the reason they failed is because the UK was in the EU and had to abide by EU regulations on State Aid. By reducing Big Govt you reconfigure its powers by reallocating them to privately run smaller states, this is known as ‘accumulation through dispossession’. Libertarian exit implements decision-making such as (zoning, exit, land grabbing, taxation, and as Mogg said ‘restructuring sovereignty and the state). Mogg’s father’s book The Sovereign Individual is all about thriving from the engineered collapse of the Welfare State. The dangers that come with deregulated Freeports are money laundering, private banking, stolen art, human trafficking, drugs and arms trade, tax evasion, and onshoring wealth. Today the most lucrative line of business is between corporations and Govt’s, many r/w think tanks have successfully stripped our politicians of any semblance of public representation.

Why are there so many Freeports and SEZs being set up across England, Scotland, and Wales?
In Scotland, there are currently 2 Freeports and 18 SEZs.
So we have The Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport, and the Firth of Forth Green Freeport, both are not yet operational. These are not just ports, they are SEZs, that are both 45km in diameter, and cover vast areas of towns, cities, and land.
Creative Clyde - Glasgow – creative industries
Prestwick - South Ayrshire – aerospace
West Lothian - Broxburn – food and drink manufacturing
West Lothian - Eliburn - Livingston – food and drink manufacturing
Dundee Port - Dundee
Dundee Claverhouse - Dundee
Leith Port - Edinburgh
Nigg - Highland
Hatston - Orkney
Scrabster - Highland
Arnish - Western Isles
Lyness - Orkney
Life Sciences Enterprise Area
Irvine - North Ayrshire
Forres Enterprise Park - Highland
BioQuarter - Edinburgh
Inverness Campus - Highland
BioCampus - Midlothian
BioCity - North Lanarkshire
The Govt wants to do away with centralized powers by handing them over to private small states run under corporate governance to further super-concentrate wealth accumulation. Big Govt is being hollowed out by both Cons and Labour to facilitate the transfer of powers to those running the zones. Tax exemption is the cherry on top within these privately protected jurisdictions.
Brexit thrives on deregulating laws that used to protect people from malign corporate interests compounded by stealth incursions into the public sector. Once companies have got their tax breaks and extracted whatever resources they can, they will pack up and move to the next available zone. Know that any clean-up bills for pollution in the SEZs will be passed on to taxpayers, just like the water companies have been doing since the UK left the EU.

Do UK Freeports and SEZs sabotage rejoining the EU?
Brexit means the UK has defaulted to WTO rules, which changes how State Aid public money in the EU is distributed. Under WTO rules State Aid can now be given to companies of the Govt’s choosing, this preferential treatment is expressly forbidden in the EU because it distorts markets creating an unlevel playing field. Each Freeport gets £25m x 12 is £300m, Teesside Freeport has received +£500m so far. Each SEZ gets £80m x 74 is £5.92bn. This is not enough money for long-term sustainability, this is subsidizing corporations for boom-and-bust, it is corporate welfare. Scores of councils are going bankrupt, this is by design, corporations in league with the duopoly will absorb all public services and ultimately privatise the UK. In 2023 Michael Gove included a section in his Levelling Up Bill on Compulsory Purchase Orders that apply to:
business owners and occupiers
agricultural owners and occupiers
residential owners and occupiers
Just wait for this to kick in when Sunak's 12 Freeports and 74 SEZs are installed. The duopoly plans to break up the nation into patchworks of corporate sovereignties, subdividing the land for corporate rule.
Scotland must become independent and undo the Westminster stranglehold. A corporate coup hatched by a cross-party alliance all sit on Freeports consortia in England, Scotland and Wales, they comprise MPs, councillors, mayors, Baronesses, and Lords (eg Lord Smith of Kelvin whose company Otter Ports is the parent company of Forth Ports and is registered in the Cayman Islands) Scottish land, and Scottish sovereignty is being turned into a commodity for venture capitalists to extract your resources without contributing anything back to communities.
Going to end with a quote from George Orwell’s 1984 “You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves”
@HunterNorrie @coletteisp @grazzar09 @SalvoFreeports @SSalyers2 @TartantuesdayI @susanchubb @blowhound

[Deborah Meaden 🇺🇦 @DeborahMeaden]

Is this true?

[Agnes Callamard @AgnesCallamard]

US veto of ceasefire resolution displays callous disregard for civilian suffering in face of staggering death toll. It is morally indefensible, a dereliction of the US duty to prevent atrocity crimes and a complete lack of global leadership. Just appalling https://t.co/vl6Pv6Lcv6

[Alex Crawford @AlexCrawfordSky]

It is absolutely farcical to try to peddle the view that foreign journalists are not entering Gaza because it’s ‘dangerous’. International journalists have been delib blocked from entering #Gaza by primarily #Israel who doesnt want them seeing the war crimes 🧵

[Ambassador Majed Bamya 🇵🇸 @majedbamya]

Palestine TV journalist Mohammad Abu Hattab was killed with his family in an Israeli airstrike. His colleague Salman Al-Bashir removes his protective gear marked PRESS on air saying: “We can’t take it anymore, we are exhausted. We are victims. The only difference between us is the time of death. We are killed one after another. And no one cares about the catastrophe or the crime that we endure in Gaza. No protection for anyone or anything. This gear and helmet do not protect any journalist, they are just empty slogans. We are victims, live on air. We are victims awaiting our turn to be killed. Mohammad was here half an hour ago (reporting). Now he lies dead with his family in this same hospital.”

[Dan Cohen @dancohen3000]

Zionist forces brutally assault Orthodox Jews in the streets of Jerusalem for opposing genocide in Gaza. Haven’t seen this kind of state violence against Jews since Nazi Germany. Images like this destroy the myth that the State of Israel is Jewish.

[Alex Taylor @AlexTaylorNews]

Given EU high food quality, "not for EU"-marked food in N Ireland supermarkets may appear less and less tempting over time, given the UK has agreed to lower its standards for CPTPP 👇

(they have to use these new labels as part of Windsor Agreement, otherwise they wouldn't 🤡)

[Deborah Meaden 🇺🇦 @DeborahMeaden]

Rhodes is burning...What really matters is not that a Tourist playground burns, its the animals burned, wildlife lost and Nature destroyed...but out headlines talk of cancelled flights and holidays. If we think this is inconvenient..you wait to see the inconvenience of climate refugees, lack of food and water....floods, droughts and war....but lets just carry on leave that to our kids to deal with.

[Rory Cellan-Jones @ruskin147]

That’s fine as long as Richard Sharp is stepping back from his Chairman duties

[Cassina 💙 @casscurl]

@Royston_Smith Will you lobby the chancellor for Southampton Itchen? Pretty unbelievable stuff, another 20% in April.

[Martin Lewis @MartinSLewis]

10 days ago I sent Chancellor @Jeremy_Hunt a letter (below) asking him to postpone the govt's 20% increase in energy bills on 1 April.

Since, SEVENTY major charities (below), & the energy industry trade body have signed up to support the letter.

IF YOU SUPPORT THE CALL PLS RT

[Cassina 💙 @casscurl]

@minnierahman A really beautiful and moving tribute to your Dad. I am so angry and sad that he went in these circumstances. Two hearts 💕

[Wyn Jeffery @wyn_jeffery]

Thanks to @SouthamptonCit2 emergency response team which is working with @SouthernWater to get water collection points in affected areas. There is no drought; this is the result of years or prioritising shareholders over infrastructure.

[Richard Murphy @RichardJMurphy]

The time’s come to admit the NHS in England has ceased to function as a proper emergency service. That’s not because of strikes: it’s why there are strikes. It’s failed because of deliberate neglect by a government that has always wanted to privatise it to end free care for all.

[Cassina 💙 @casscurl]

I swear @MartinSLewis moves me to tears every time I see him. Such a lovely human being. #gmb

[Danny Baker @prodnose]

Stopped watching #ImACeleb five episodes ago when it became clear Matt Hancock was being facilitated by a pro-Tory voting block.
@ITV should really review what they have done here.
The total trivialisation of a national tragedy.
He is not "a character". He is a disgrace.

[Adam Bienkov @AdamBienkov]

Buried in the footnotes of Jeremy Hunt's Autumn Statement is a massive tax cut on bank profits. Surcharge cut from 8% to just 3%.

[Hugo Tagholm @HugoSAS]

That is one big sewage slick at St Agnes! 🤮😡✊ #EndSewagePollution

@CarveMag @GoodLawProject @JolyonMaugham @sascampaigns @AmySlack_SAS

[Benjamin Fogel @BenjaminFogel]

I don't want to sound alarmist, but there is a serious attempt at a coup happening in the open right now in Brazil. The Federal Traffic Police along with state police and elements of the army are trying to suppress the vote across the country. I will continue to post updates