Leah highlights the Freeport ruse
The dire implications of the ‘green’ freeports are sinking in. Despite warnings, the Scottish government agreed to auction off more of Scotland. Freeports are tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions. They’re tax-free and regulation-lite zones where adherence to whatever rules remain, is up to the private companies operating in them. Companies police themselves and no oneContinue reading "Leah highlights the Freeport ruse"
The dire implications of the ‘green’ freeports are sinking in. Despite warnings, the Scottish government agreed to auction off more of Scotland.
Freeports are tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions. They’re tax-free and regulation-lite zones where adherence to whatever rules remain, is up to the private companies operating in them. Companies police themselves and no one monitors what they’re doing so labour and environmental laws can be flouted and criminal activity flourish.
Scotland’s two freeports are in the Firth of Forth and Inverness and Cromarty Firth, but will encompass sites over a large geographic area. The Forth freeport extends to Kincardine Bridge and Falkirk, including Linlithgow, Edinburgh airport to Leith, the 3 bridges over the Forth and more than half of Fife. It includes Scotland’s only oil refinery, Grangemouth, owned by Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS. The companies clambering onto the boards of the already privatised freeports that are owned by highly leveraged private equity companies all want a piece of the action.
The Scottish government gave INEOS a license to frack shale gas[1] and it’s expected to expand fracking into the freeport area because the freeport is outwith Scottish legal jurisdiction. The onshore shale gas potential in the Central Belt is 6 billion barrels of oil.[2] It includes Edinburgh, Stirling and Glasgow. Do you suppose fracking, that pollutes groundwater, triggers earthquakes and increases greenhouse gases, would be allowed in London or anywhere in the precious southeast?
There’s no evidence that freeports create jobs.[3] At best, jobs are moved from elsewhere at the cost of undermining the law and regulation of the areas around the freeport. That’s the plan.
Scotland is for sale. The only way to stop the plunder is for the Scottish People to reclaim their territorial sovereignty.
Yours sincerely
Leah Gunn Barrett
[1] https://theferret.scot/pedl-162-ineos-fracking-licence-renewed/
[2] https://foe.scot/press-release/shale-gas-in-scotland-not-fracking-worth-it/
[3] https://www.centreforcities.org/blog/why-free-ports-do-not-hold-the-answer-to-job-creation-in-a-post-brexit-world/
MY COMMENTS
Well done Leah for identifying the very real dangers Freeport’s present.. What the hell are the Scottish Government doing supporting their creation in Scotland? I may be over 70 but I will be up for some serious civil disobedience if that comes to pass. Leah and Professor Alf Baird are doing great work exposing how Scotland is being fleeced while Holyrood does nothing….worse joins in!
I am, as always
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