Snake oil is a term used for deceptive marketing, what better term for Freeports and SZs!
But who are the Snake oil sellers? Look no further than Westminster aided and abetted by Holyrood.
Politicians as we used to know them no longer rule this country, enormous conglomerates do. How has this happened, quite easy actually because most of our senior Politicians are part of those conglomerates, they have fingers in all the pies! And Labour are no better, we see Starmer and his shadow Treasury MP already wandering around these Freeport sites eyeing up the benefits, are they being seduced by the Snake oil sellersor are they part of this big illusion?
Opinion polls suggest the Tories will be wiped out and replaced by Labour, but what is Labour these days, certainly not the one I grew up with, the one that actually cared about people.
No, to quote Starmer himself, “we are the new Tories”!
The thought of that terrifies me.
Without a radical change in Scotland, we too will be dragged to the bottom, asset-stripped then dumped with nothing to build upon.
Isn’t it ironic that one of the largest firms involved in Freeports & EZs just happens to be from India? Oh, how the tables of history have turned no thanks to our PMs family connections.
Just think about it for a minute, big chunks of Scotland are being sold off cheaply to Indian and other foreign firms with limited checks and balances!
The buzz word on SM at the moment seems to be ‘Abstention’ and we will do no harm by fanning those flames.
Abstention as we know is not new and its eventual success in Ireland is now bearing fruit in NI. So we know it works, but we Scots are canny folk and need time to fully digest ways that are new to usbefore we cross the Rubicon!
Alongside the road of Abstention of course we have The Liberation Movement another building block, another way of sharpening the axe!
It has been asked…what then? Meaning I presume what happens if Parliament collapsed and the Union Act was repealed.
Would there be a vacuum? No, because other organizations in Scotland are busy preparing the building blocks for a new Scotland. Some based on the old ways, [COR] and other ways taking the best examples from across the world.
Yes, the builders have been busy and when the new model has been built all will be revealedand all of Scotland will have the final say.
At some point we have to start putting our faith in The People of Scotland who are after all Sovereign!
But perhaps the most important this to say at this moment is, it is not Politicians who are fronting these groups.
One of the greatest privileges of my working life was to build around me a team I could trust and teach others to do the same. This of course doesn’t just apply to work situations but also life itself.
I won’t pretend I didn’t make a few mistakes along the way….we all do…..its called a learning curve!!
Trust & integrity go hand in hand, without trust, there is no integrity and with no integrity there is no trust.
All organisations and groups will fail if these two things are not embedded within them, this is especially true when working with others who very often work autonomously!
Freedom to work or lead independently is the rock on which many an organization has perished because like it or not there has to be some kind of foundation….someone has to lead from the top to put the building blocks in place!
There has to be some kind of regulation not deregulation!It may be ‘light touch’ but it has to be there!…..and the key to getting this right is vetting! Getting the right people into the right place from the start, especially if those people are going to work independently, out of sight for the most part.
There can be no place for egos in any well-functional organisation especially where external groups are being built up, otherwise ‘mini kingdoms’ arise.
All within a group may well have the same dream but if egos are allowed to walk among them unfettered then dreams will be crushed.
Complete autonomy may be ones aspiration but in reality, it doesn’t work, there has to be structure and hands-on leadership within that structure.
You can have the best leader in the world but if that kind of leadership does not trickle down throughout the organisation everything below hangs on a ‘shooglie peg’!
Building a team is no different in principle from building a house. Firm foundations and the best materials available.
When trying to build up the foundations for a new Scotland let’s make sure the foundations are solid and the right people are in the right place!
Given that this country of ours is supposed to be a Democracy, you could be forgiven for thinking that Democracy and Free Will are one in the same.
Why? Well in a vague way the two are linked because we are free to exercise our wills at the ballot box, but there it ends and we have sold our souls to false promises!!
The PM is using Democracy to destroy Democracy and replacing it with Privatisation.
Libertarianism is a whole new ball game because the ‘free will’ it talks about is not free will for us, the public, but free will for big conglomerates. Free of government interference, free of regulations, including Employment regulations.
Deregulation is another new game in town! The big boys make their own rules within these Freeports and Economic Zones and it’s a race to the bottom.
Once these zones have been set up, in spite of what may have been promised, local Councils are shut out, only functioning at arm’s length and the size of these zones can cover land far beyond any port, one in England covering 78mls in length, even the Forth one covers approximately 48mls including half of Edinburgh!……lets see how that works out!
But it is the secrecy around these zones that should concern us all, and set alarm bells ringing, even local Councillors are kept in the dark, they are only shown the ‘sales pack’…..but that’s politics is it not? We all get sold a ‘pup’ and a pup it remains.
Who would have thought that our very own SNP government would sell off bits of Scotland to foreign companies to the detriment of local people, and when I say ‘sell off’ I mean it, for that land has gonefor 20-25yrsand for 20-25yrs that particular LA will struggle to fill the black hole of tax lossesthat pay for our services.
How could any FM past or present do this to Scotland?
How could any FM think it morally right to encourage
low-wage jobs to help big business profits? ….many would call it ‘modern slavery’!
What do we tell the people in Cairnryan, if because of increased traffic and the size of vehicles these big companies deem the road through the village to be too narrow [which it is] and needs to be widened thus bringing in compulsory buying orders for their homes?
What has happened to us that we allow this?
Why is there only one organization [Freeports community, Salvo] & one Political Party [ISP] fightingfor Scotland’s land?
They say ‘old age does not come alone’ and they are right. It’s been a bad winter for me in many ways, hence my silence!
Much has happened over the past month or so, especially on the Political landscape.
There was a time when one could describe one’s personal leanings as, left, right or centre. Today these seem to have moulded into one or even disappeared and been replaced by Libertarianism! ….. not to be confused with Liberalism!
And along with this new way comes Freeports and EZs. Privatisation and a race to the bottom with deregulation all wrapped up in a super shiny package to entice those who are not competent enough or can’t be bothered to read the small print!
The latest so-called ‘enhanced investment zone’ is Cairnryan in Dumfries & Galloway which marries up with the new NI deal.
The glossy headlines on the gift box are things like jobs, enterprise, low or in some instances no tax, no NI!
No mention of low pay, no employment rights, compulsory buyouts and loss of income for the Council which will have a knock on effect for all.
Our land is being sold off to the highest bidder and no-one will have any say in how these things will be run and little control as to who or what is being shipped in!
This is the new way folks and the only people who will gain whether still in government or not are the rich entrepreneurs who have bought your land from under your feet, and like Teesside will leave it in a mess for us to clean up!
Check out the Freeports group, the only ones fighting for our land and our rights.
JOAN’S JOURNEY CONTINUES 