Freeports Revisited

This dropped into my email inbox courtesy GOV.​UK for:

Brexit Maps of Freeports and Freeport tax sites This collection brings together a list of Freeport maps, the Freeport tax site locations legislated for within them, and a statement on the designation process. Change made: First published. Time updated: 1:41pm, 27 October 2021 Maps of UK Freeports These maps show Freeport locations in the UK, their outer boundaries and the Freeport tax sites within them. Change made: First published. Time updated: 1:41pm, 27 October 2021

Well, we will have to see, just how effective regions of largely unregulated, unscrutinised, unaudited, fare at leveling up the economy and making things fairer for the average man and woman.

This government will serve only to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Voting Tory is saying you want greater wealth inequality.

For the record, I posted What Is A Free Port? back in March 22, 2021:

Before we get to what is a free port, hold the following thought in your mind. In 2016 we were all asked to vote in a referendum on whether or not to leave the EU. At the time, not even the government had done the homework necessary to work out the probable consequences of changing what we already had for what was then, largely a complete unknown.

The 2016 referendum was like a pilot at 35,000 feet announcing over the intercom that he would now be holding a referendum for all the holidaymakers on how best to land the plane. If that is your working model of democracy in action, you can hardly be surprised that crash-and-burn is a probable outcome.

There was some salient information available, most of it existed on the government’s own website and was publically available to all; information such as the balance of trade figures between the UK and EU.

But beyond that, there was another indicator as to whether Brexit was likely to be good for you. Who were the politicians who were pushing hard for Leave? Then ask yourself, how much you had in common with those hard-leaver politicians. Are you in the same league of wealth as Jacob Rees Mogg? Do you feel he is the sort of man to share your life concerns and is likely to be fighting your corner?

So now the government wants to introduce free ports and I do not see a lot of noise being made about this, so let us start with the BBC’s description of what is a free port: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-55819489

Now here is my analogy of how a free port operates:

Imagine a solicitors practice that handles the legal oversight of the sale and purchase of property; conveyancing. Now imaging that the solicitors sit in their offices and perform conveyancing in strict accordance with the law. They ensure the land registry is consulted and duly updated, they perform the necessary searches in respect of planning permission, and so on, they oversee the transfer of deposit and finally ensure keys are exchanged only when all legal matters are duly completed in accordance with the law and that all fees and stamp-duty taxes are settled.

Now imagine introducing a free port into this solicitors office. It gets set up in the reception area. It’s sort of in a solicitor’s office, but it evades all the normal legal oversight. Because it is outside of the normal legal framework for conveyancing it can be staffed by untrained personnel. Buyers and sellers who would rather not bother with such formalities and expense, such as stamp-duty could go for the conveyancing-lite procedure offered by these solicitor-free ports. House keys get exchanged for wads of wonga on a nod and a wink. No searches, no updating of the land registry, just a private contract, no public record, no stamp duty, no surveyors fees, no searches. With all that money saved, you can see the attraction. Dodge the taxman, hide your wealth. You can also see that a solicitor’s clerk who did not quite make the grade would be more than delighted to facilitate such transaction in a free port, for a suitably attractive undisclosed tax-free fee too.

This is the realm of free ports. It will not level up the UK any more than Brexit will put £350 million into the hands of the NHS every week. What it will deliver is a dodgy dealing platform for those with loads-a-money. It will go some way to stretch the gap between have and have-nots.

You still holding on to that thought I started with? Ask yourself, what sort of politician is pushing for free ports? Are they people just like you? I doubt it unless you are a millionaire. But then if you believed £350 million for the NHS on the side of the bus perhaps you too believe free ports will level up the UK for the likes of you. As for me, no, I do not think they will be good either for me or anyone other than the very rich and some politicians and senior police who are willing to look the other way.