Better Together 2024 – 11 x 77 x 26cm, latex, photographs, plaster, spray paint, acrylic paint, sheet plastic
I was asked this question over on Substack – “Is there any way, legally, to revoke those licenses and corporate tax breaks and zones that have been set …..?”
Answer – UK free zones would have to align with the EU’s regulations on State aid, ‘The EU Parliament stresses that State aid should support ecological transformation and foster the development of services, knowledge, and infrastructure rather than providing support to specific companies’. Realignment would be a huge undertaking because there is a clause written into the UK’s 25 years long licenses, which is an equivalent mechanism to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) known as the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), should any incoming govt breach the 25-year contracts with companies inside the SEZs, that company can enter an arbitration dispute and potentially sue the British govt for billions of pounds. ISDS and LCIA are key components of deregulated free zones and CPTPP free trade deals, both of which are embedded with secondary legislation to fuel the race to the bottom. Secondary legislation means zero Parliamentary or public scrutiny.
