As I noted in my column in The National yesterday:
My argument was this:
[Freeports] exist to promote the ideas of far-right politicians who hate the idea of regulations and tax, and who want to profit from their removal. Saying this I stress that there is no convincing evidence that freeports create new jobs or prosperity: at best they just move jobs in to freeports from neighbouring areas.
But this relocation of jobs is not 'free' as the name freeport might imply. It comes at a considerable cost, which is the undermining of the law and regulation of the spaces around the freeport elsewhere in Scotland, which is exactly what their promoters want. Freeports are part of a tax haven narrative that should have been consigned to history decades ago because of the harm that they cause.
The SNP might live to regret the day that it provided operation to Westminster on this issue.
The same is pretty much true for the rest of the UK as well.
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There’s nothing worse to me that watching a government cut its own throat and it tells us how much it has been taken over by people who do not believe in it.
Not only that, it is totally contrary to the history to how government/the state actually grew the country. Proper government creates money and invests it at nil cost to the nation and proper government does the utmost to support its own currency via tax and duties.
Yet we have a ‘government’ doing the exact opposite of all of that and putting consumer safety interests at risk as well as threatening established ports with established jobs and communities (as you say it will just move things around – not add them).
The only conclusion you can come to is that it is plain mismanagement based on extremely faulty ideology = incompetence.
The British people are continuously denied the right to sack the incompetent ruling party in government. It’s a travesty.
I’m very unhappy that my party, the S.N.P, seem intent on going ahead with this proposal.
I’m afraid the SNP has exposed itself, not in the marginal issue of trans rights, but in exposing the neoliberal fester lurking at its core. They talk a good game at times, but like Scots Labour, the truth is ugly.
Very difficult to work within a neoliberal bubble (Tory Britain) and be different.
I sometimes wonder if the freeports/charter cities aren’t intended eventually to function like modern day plantations where the workers reliably receive food, shelter, healthcare, education and entertainment according to their levels of service. They wouldn’t be paid with money, just services. As society and its ability to provide
crumbles, it seems to me this idea makes more and more sense, not that I’m a fan of it I hasten to add. It’s also in line with Schwab’s alleged suggestion that people should own nothing and be happy. I wonder if that’s where they’re going? We’ll know as time passes.
Everything you say about Freeports is completely true, Richard, and they cannot in any sense be considered as a free-market option, as they work by distorting the market. So they can’t be a product of the free-market ideology so allegedly beloved of successive Conservative governments. Mind you, they’ve also proved they have no ideological objections to state operation of railways in Britain. Just as long as it’s not the UK state running them…
As regards the Scottish freeports, I think the SNP government at Holyrood would have taken two things into account. If all these freeports were south of the border, there would be a danger that they could suck some level of activity out of the Scottish economy (so an element of keeping up with the Joneses), and secondly turning them down would have been an absolute open goal to the Scottish editions of the right-wing press. Not saying I agree with there being Scottish freeports – I don’t think there should be any anywhere in the UK – just explaining why I think the SNP “gave in” on the question.
A relative and good friend was one of those asked to advise the government. He has years of highly relevant international expertise. He sent me his report. The conclusions were that they are a waste of time and a home for tax avoidance and crime. It’s why they have mostly gone from developed economies but are common in more corrupted locations.
He said that it was obvious that the government were not interested in any challenging views and had made up their mind. Chief driver being Sunak with motivations exactly as Richard describes. That in turn being linked to his Indian family and business connections, there being lots of freeports in India, with nefarious agendas.
They are the way to exploit people, who do real work, even more for the benefit of the very rich. That is why the government is setting them up – they are all into getting as much extra cash in the back pocket as they can while in office – and later for as long as possible. Meanwhile the voters are distracted by those ‘swarms of illegal immigrants’, and Unions promoting industrial action that harms ‘working people’. Divide and Rule still works it seems.
Neo Liberalism?