{"id":56906,"date":"2021-05-10T07:59:45","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T06:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=56906"},"modified":"2021-05-11T17:40:17","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T16:40:17","slug":"johnsons-freeports-are-already-failing-to-deliver-but-the-process-of-corrosion-once-it-has-begun-is-hard-to-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/05\/10\/johnsons-freeports-are-already-failing-to-deliver-but-the-process-of-corrosion-once-it-has-begun-is-hard-to-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s freeports are already failing to deliver, but the process of corrosion once it has begun is hard to stop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If there is one thing I think we can rely on from Boris Johnson it is that he is inept. He promises much , but will persistently fail to deliver. This will be a reason why his politics will very rapidly become more repugnant; he will need them to do so to fill the void created by his own incompetence.<\/p>\n<p>The latest evidence of that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/625d1913-9242-4d97-9d0b-9cd6925c4e0e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">incompetence comes from the FT<\/a> on the issue of freeports. The story is available from this tweet:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Here we go again. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/o1wtmhvHMG\">pic.twitter.com\/o1wtmhvHMG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Tim Walker (@ThatTimWalker) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ThatTimWalker\/status\/1391508246314237957?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 9, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Liz Truss seems to have forgotten to include freeports in her renegotiation of trade deals following Brexit. The result is that many of them will not be nearly so free at all.<\/p>\n<p>But then, as I was noted as saying in an article on freeports in <a href=\"https:\/\/investmentmonitor.ai\/insights\/uk-free-ports-gamble\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Investment Monitor<\/a> last week, freeports were always an idea that were not solving \u00a0any known problem:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe shortage is of ideas \u2014 there is ample capital,\u201d says Richard Murphy, director of the Corporate Accountability Network and a visiting professor of accounting at Sheffield University. \u201cThe development of a free port doesn\u2019t improve the number of ideas that are available for activity.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I added:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI don\u2019t get what this is all meant to be about \u2014 unless it is simply another bung,\u201d says Murphy. \u201cBluntly, that is what I see it as \u2014 cronyism.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With the capital allowance offering already undermined by Sunak\u2019s so-called \u2018super deduction\u2019 and now this even the bung looks pretty poor right now.<\/p>\n<p>Unless, of course, there is another reason for this policy. And that is to undermine the whole regulatory environment of the UK. I presume that is the real purpose. By providing creeping deregulation that plan is to undermine the \u00a0power of regulation \u00a0where it is supposed to remain in use. And that way government itself is undermined.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully it looks for the time being as though Johnson is not that good at that. But the process is ongoing, and corrosion once it starts spreads. That\u2019s what Johnson hopes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If there is one thing I think we can rely on from Boris Johnson it is that he is inept. He promises much , but<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/05\/10\/johnsons-freeports-are-already-failing-to-deliver-but-the-process-of-corrosion-once-it-has-begun-is-hard-to-stop\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,35,106,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-economics","category-politics","category-tax-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}