9 Responses to “Queen Elizabeth Dismisses U.K. Government – Norman’s Dream”

• Havelock Brewster on August 19th, 2009 at 1:58 pm

  Well that’s really hilarious. But, truth to say, your dream could have been reality and would have been widely popular in the UK. That’s what constitutional monarchs are for. A golden opportunity was lost to make the Crown relevant. If only QE had it in her!! Then Charles could have renounced all his entitlements, and he and Camilla could have come in with a blaze with his own Party– the RGG, the Right to Good Governance, in coalition of course with the Greens. His first act would have been the abolition of the Monarchy, and the appointment of Mrs. Elizabeth Windsor as Speaker of the House!

• Joyce van Genderen-Naar on August 19th, 2009 at 4:27 pm

  What you write about double standards is correct, after all the recent scandals and corruption in the UK and the financial and economic crises caused by EU/USA banking system. How worse can it be in the Turks and Caicos Islands? It is the same the Netherlands are saying about Curaçao and the Netherlands Antilles : that these islands have so many debts that the Dutch Kingdom needs to keep the financial control of these islands. And what about the recent European Commission policy to integrate the OCTs and to activate them? During the Green Paper Conference in September 2008 in Brussels the EC said that the OCTs do not belong to some EU member States, that they are part of the EU family and that their economies need support from the EU. This UK decision could be a step backward in the whole EC policy towards the OCTs and encourage the Netherlands and France to do the same with their OCTs.

• Mervyn Claxton on August 21st, 2009 at 8:17 am

  Norman’s dream is both amusing and thought provoking. It is a graphic reminder that, as per the popular saying, “different strokes for different folks” is a practice that has always characterized not only the relations between Imperial powers and their hapless colonies, as well as their former colonies (often with the compliance/complicity of the elites in the latter), but also those between the powerful and the weak, the dominant and the dominated, the North and the South. The case of the TCI is only the most recent example.

  Norman’s dream envisages the demise of the British government by an act of the British Queen exercising her constitutional prerogative, thus ensuring genuine equality of treatment for ALL her subjects, whatever the colour of their skin. But that dream merely anticipates by a few months, or a year at most, the very same result – the government being booted out of power in the forthcoming elections by an electorate, outraged by the corruption scandal and whose fury cannot be appeased. The Labour party’s ratings has been falling in the past few months but the parliamentary scandal sent them into free fall. Members of both leading parties are involved but the scandal happened on the Labour Party’s watch and, for that reason, it is the party that will pay the highest political price. The Speaker of the House of Commons (a Labour party member), for example, did not fiddle his expenses, nevertheless, his position soon became untenable and he was forced to resign for having failed to take timely action to rectify a system of expense allowances which permitted such abuse.

  In a truly just and fair world such action as envisaged in Norman’s dream would not be a mere pipe dream, as it undoubtedly is, but we must come to terms with the sobering fact that we do not live in a just and fair world. Nonetheless, the British parliamentary expenses scandal provides important lessons for us in Caricom and the South as a whole. It demonstrates how a genuinely democratic system works. Although fiddling expenses is a very mild form of corruption, as corruption goes (an awful number of “respectable” people do it on a regular basis), and despite the fact that the vast majority of the cases so far revealed do not appear to break the law or even the parliamentary rules governing the system of expenses, they are incontestably dishonest and do indeed constitute gross abuse of the system. And it is such unindictable dishonesty and abuse of public trust that has enraged the British public. Would it be a pipe dream to imagine that the day will come when the public in our own region and the countries of the South will be capable of a similar reaction and similar political retribution for the government in place?

  That unindictable abuse led to the resignation of a number of MPs of both parties as well as several government ministers; it led to many other MPs “deselecting” themselves as candidates at the next election or being deselected by their constituency parties. Gordon Brown himself declared that it is the worst political crisis of his career. Would such unindictable abuse of public trust, on the part of ministers and politicians, cause such great political damage in Caricom and other democratic countries in the South? Would our politicians be forced to pay a similarly high political price?

  The expenses scandal highlighted other important features of a genuine democracy ““ the independence of the press and the role it played as public watchdog; the independence of the judiciary; the powerlessnes of parliament and the government to muzzle, intimidate, or seduce them; and the independence of the police in opening investigations to ascertain whether ministers and MPs committed any crime in fiddling their expenses. The public revelation of the expenses scandal originated in a February 2008 request for the release of details of MPs’ expenses claims under the Freedom of Information Act (2000), which was granted by an Information Tribunal. The Tribunal’s decision was contested by the House of Commons on the grounds that it was “unlawfully intrusive”, but the English High Court ruled against it. Making the best of a decision it heartily disliked, for reasons that subsequently became evident, the House of Commons announced that it would publish the MPs expenses but with “sensitive” data omitted, which it duly did. To the great embarrassment of MPs and ministers, the Daily Telegraph preempted that attempt at political censorship by obtaining and publishing the full details of MPs expenses.

  How many countries in the South have passed a Freedom of Information Act ““ one that has real teeth? How many countries in the South possess a truly independent press which takes its role of public watchdog seriously; a truly independent judiciary and Judicial Tribunal system; and a police force capable of undertaking independent investigations that are potentially embarassing to the régime in place? Those are some of the main bulwarks of a genuine democracy. But the most important bulwark of all is a vigilant, concerned, committed citizenry which holds the government to account and does not hesitate to make it pay the ultimate price at the polls for breach of public trust, misgovernment, incompetence, or failure to deliver the goods.

  According to two British academics, (Ronald Wraith & Edgar Simpkins, “Corruption in Developing countries” 1963), who undertook studies of public corruption in Britain and in the developing world, 19th century-Britain was more corrupt that any African or Asian country. Detailing the blatant bribery that took place in British elections, the violence and thuggery which marred them, and the incomptence and corruption of county judges, they claimed that “the prize for what is now regarded as political iniquitousness go to Britain rather than to the emerging nations of the 20th century.” In the last decades of that century, Britain cleaned up its political act with such landmark legislation as the Secret Ballot Act (1892), the Corruption and Illegal Practices Act (1883), and the Public Bodies Corrupt Protection Act (1889).

  Wraith and Simpkins emphasized a crucially important point that should be of great interest to Caricom peoples and others in the South who advocate or militate for honest government and public probity, greater government transparency (e.g. in the case of the CARIFORUM-EU EPA negotiations), more government responsiveness and greater sensitivity to the concerns of the people, more particiaptory government, greater willingness to accept responsibility for government incompetence or acts of malfeasance or nonfeasance etc. The point the two authors underlined was that the Legislative Acts which cleaned up British politics merely made illegal, behaviour that the majority of the British public had already deemed unacceptable. The landmark legislation had majority opinion behind it before it was enacted. Political corruption in Britain was thus brought to an end by public opinion, not by the laws themselves, just as the near-certain demise of the current British government, though it would be hastened by the Royal action envisaged in Norman’s dream, does not depend on such action. British public opinion and the sure knowledge of MPs and government ministers that that opinion is implacable – it cannot be changed by empty promises, electoral giveaways, or appeals to party loyalty – have alrady written its epitaph. For the Labour government, it is all over bar the shouting.

  Would it be too farfetched a dream to imagine a Caricom citizenry just as mobilized as the British citizenry in support of the common interest ““ one that implacably holds governments accountable for their actions or non-actions and makes them pay the ultimate political price for malfeasance, nonfeasance, incompetence, ineffectiveness, or insensitivity to citizen’s concerns? One that the governments in the region cannot hoodwink or “buy” at election time with last minute promises, election-time giveaways, or open appeals to party loyalty and less open ones to community? One that the governments of the region know that they cannot keep ignorant of important EPA negotiations, conducted in secret, and that if they dared do so the entire community would be outraged and react furiously, much like the British public did in the parliamentary expenses scandal, rather than the mild reaction of Caricom citizens ““ a petition for a review of the EPA Agreement which attracted less than two hundred signatures out of a regional population numbering several million? A citizenry who would demand an explanation for the signing of a Declaration on Sustainable Development, the provisions of which, far from protecting and furthering the interests of Caricom peoples, actually damaged them? A citizenry that would hold governments politically accountable for having allowed the level of violence to increase to such a dangerous extent under their watch?

  Mervyn

• Joan Grant Cummings on August 21st, 2009 at 12:12 pm

  Thanks for sharing the Caricom response Nicole.

  I also agree wholeheartedly with Joyce’s comments.

  I must be honest and say, cynic that I am, when I read the CARICOM statement it felt like when Papa used to wake me up for school and 15 mins later me just wiping de sleep outta mi eye dem!

  I am hoping that the C’wealth-wide civil society contingent for the C’wealth People’s Forum (CPF) and the C’wealth Heads of Gov mtgs later this year in Trinidad will be making this a ‘big issue’ de same way Pakistan and Zimbabwe got hauled up at past CPFs and HOG mtgs.

  I will certainly be putting forward my tuppence from now.

  One love, J

  “one bracelet does not jingle”
  “ending human poverty requires a democratic space in which people can articulate demands, act collectively and fight for more equitable distribution of power”

• Norman on August 21st, 2009 at 12:35 pm

  Thanks to Nicole Parris for sending the news item Caricom Condemns British Take Over Of The Turks and Caicos Islands. It is heartening to see our own regional organization taking a firm stand on the matter. I think the statement hit the nail on the head where it said “the democratic process within the region cannot be strengthened by removing representative democracy from the citizens of the Islands….on the contrary, it would have been far more beneficial, and the results more sustainable, to involve the people of the territory through their elected representatives, in the efforts required to strengthen the good governance and public administrative processes of the Turks and Caicos Islands, which is the stated ultimate goal of the British Government”.

  I am also struck by the point made by the dismissed Premier, Mr Galmo Williams, that “the governor (of the TCI) as well as the local government must share the blame for any systemic problems (and that ) London and local authorities could have worked together to resolve such problems …We have a British governor who is responsible for good governance; who is responsible for civil servants, who is the president of the cabinet. It cannot be one-sided,”.

  Seems to me there is an inherent contradiction in Britain putting all the power into the hands of officials assigned from London and at the same time saying that new systems will be put in place and then representative government restored. Who is going to operate the new systems? Will there be permanent British oversight? If TCI people are to take responsibilty eventually why not involve them in the design of the new system through their elected representatives? Will TCI people feel ownership of systems that are imposed by officials from London? Is this sustainable, as Caricom is hinting? An action based on the premise that TCI people are too incomptetent and/or untrustworthy to design improved systems of administration is utterly paternalistic; and imbued with a liberal dose of cultural and racial arrogance. And by the way, look out for similar attitudes from EU officials when EPA implementation gets going!

  Its also interesting to read the Economist’s report on the British action (“A Very British Coup, August 20 2009). The general tone of the article is to suggest that the British action was justified. It ends by hinting that in the future Britain may be able to wash its hands of TCI by handing them over to the Bahamas. What I find interesting is the following:

  1. A leading mouthpiece of the British business establishment has termed the British action a “coup”. If anyone opposed to the action had applied this label, it would doubtless have been dismissed as hyperbole, or as seeking to excuse corrupt behaviour, or as demonstrating ignorance of the U.K’s legal rights and responsibilties under British and international law.

  2. At the same time it inserts the qualifier “very British” before “coup”. This is the heart of the message that Economist intends to convey. In other words, a British coup is different, and a ‘very British’ coup is very different, from ordinary coups. The subliminal message is that a ‘very British coup’ is motivated by lofty motives of good governance and is backed by the capacity to install superior governance and administrative systems. The same justifications for colonial conquest were used by the British and orher European imperialists in the 19th century all over Africa and Asia. This is Kipling’s famous ‘White Man’s Burden’ and the French mission civilatrice. So that there are bad coups and good coups; (just as there is “bad” terrorism–Al Qaeda–and “good” terrorism–the state terrorism carried out by the Imperial powers). Coups carried out by Africans are bad, but coups carried out by the West are good. Coups carried out in Latin America are also ‘bad’, but if its carried out against a President that is defying the Empire, however moderately, well, he brought it on himself, didn’t he?

  It is a measure of the Economist’s self-confidence in the rightness of its assumptions that it could have actually labelled the British action a ‘coup’ and failed to see the contradictions of treating a coup as acceptable or unaccepable depending on who carries it out. Note also that the article refers to Caricom’s “tepid” statement. I believe this must be a reference not to Caricom’s recent statement, but to the section on the TCI in the Caricom Communique from the July Summit; which read as follows:

  Statement on the situation in Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI)

  The Member States of the Caribbean Community reiterate their view that respect for the rule of law, representative democracy and integrity in public life are fundamental elements of good governance to which they all strongly adhere. Accordingly, they were deeply disturbed by the adverse findings of Turks and Caicos Commission of Inquiry into possible corruption or other dishonesty in relation to past and present elected members of the Legislature.

  The Caribbean Community continues to hold fast to the view it expressed in its statement on the situation in the TCI on 24 March 2009 that suspending the Constitution of TCI and its democratic institutions and resorting to direct rule by the colonial power are not the most effective tools to bolster good governance and effective administration in the territory.

  The Community therefore regrets that the intervening period was not used more profitably to find solutions that would avert the threatened constitutional and democratic dislocation. In this regard, the rejection by the governor of the proposal of the new Premier to allow the people of TCI to elect a new government which could have adopted and implemented the measures required to improve the administration of the territory and strengthen integrity in public life was, regrettably, a lost opportunity. The people of the Turks and Caicos Islands and their ability to govern themselves in the long run will benefit far more from strengthening their administrative and good governance processes through their own efforts than by the administrations through the governor under direct rule.

  The Economist article and the latest Caricom statement appeared practically simultaneously on August 20. The content of Caricom’s August 20 statement is substantively the same as that of the July statement, but the tone seems stronger and less equivocval to me. Perhaps the Caricom leaders in July did not believe that the British would actually have carried through with the threat of direct rule. Had they made an unequivocal condemnation of direct rule in the July statement, this might have given the British some second thoughts. Perhaps. But if Caricom is to have any possibility of affecting the course of events from here on; the governments will have to follow up their statement with vigorous and consistent diplomacy with Whitehall, that is not diluted by the wish to curry favour because of DFID (the UK aid agency) assistance.

  This affair is going to be another test case of the Caribbean people’s willingness to resist the colonial condition.

• Joyce NAAR on August 21st, 2009 at 12:52 pm

  Dear Mervin,

  Your analysis is indepth and realistic. There is a lack of active dialogue, communication, freedom of expression, and taking up responsability for political and economic actions in our countries in the South. It is not easy to get people involved in written discussions, to write down their own opinion, because they are afraid of the consequences. There are people like Norman who are raising attention and awareness of important regional and international issues that concern us all, but generally there is no or little feedback. In this case it is different, there are several reactions, due to the creative way Norman choose to bring the TCI/UK case to our attention through his dream/article in the context of ‘CAP (Caribbean Anansi Press), headquartered all over the Caribbean, dedicated to bringing news and views from the centre of its spider”™s web.’Everyone in the Caribbean knows Anansi, it is a traditional way to express, inform and criticize in culture and literature that still seems to work according to the reactions. Norman wrote : ” It is of course an imaginary, fictitious entity, part of the satire itself!”

  This is a way to start the discussions and take up responsability for the political and economical actions and decisions (EPA) in our region and in the world.
  A more active, informed and involved society is what we need indeed. TCI and the UK is a good case to learn more about and to discuss the decisions that are taking for Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) like TCI and other Caribbean states belonging to the Group of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (ACP).

  The Caribbean Community/CARICOM’s condemnation of the decision taken by the British government to take over rule of one of its associate members, the Turks and Caicos Island, brings OCTs and ACP closer together. Note: OCT was invented in 1957 (EEC Treat of Rome) and ACP in 1975 (Georgetown Agreement).

• Mervyn Claxton (23 August 2009) on August 23rd, 2009 at 2:44 am

  Norman,

  I had read, in the printed version, the Economist article you cited in your message yesterday and I agree with your analysis of it. Acccording to the article’s dateline, it was written by the Economist’s T&T correspondent. I wonder if it is the same person who had interviewed you last year about the CARIFORUM-EU EPA and distorted your remarks in the article that subsequently appeared in the Economist, in which she/he dismissively described the campaign mounted by you and others against the EPA as one conducted by a few “aging academics and retired diplomats”, the clear implication being that the opponents of the EPA were confined to a handful of individuals who had gone soft in the head through age. I was intrigued by one of the comments made by the corespondent in the following last paragraph of the article:

  “There has long been a debate on whether the Turks and Caicos and other micro-states in the region are viable as self-governing entities. For most of the imperial period the islands were run from Jamaica or the Bahamas. As Britain”™s Caribbean colonies were heading towards independence in the 1950s, there was a short-lived attempt to unite them all in a West Indies Federation, to be run from Trinidad (which has recently talked to some neighbours about a possible union). There have also been various suggestions down the years to unite the Turks and Caicos with distant Canada. Returning them to the mercies of chaotic Jamaica would offer few benefits. But the Bahamas, having made great strides in overcoming its own corruption and drugs problems of the 1980s, would seem a good candidate to take the islands back under its wing one day.”

  The comment, which is badly phrased, is not quite clear but it does appears to allege that T&T has recently discussed with other Caricom countries the possibility of the Turks and Caicos being taken into a union – with T&T? or with a closer neighbour like the Bahamas? Have you or anyone else heard anything about such a union or is the Economist’s T&T correspondent once again distorting the facts?

  Mervyn

• Joyce NAAR on August 23rd, 2009 at 9:38 am

  The European Commission in Brussels is preparing guidelines for the future relations between the EU and its 21 Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) in the Caribbean, Pacific and Indian Ocean. The policy of the EC towards the OCTs is to integrate them in the region. During the Green Paper Conference in September 2008 in Brussels the EC said that the OCTs do not belong to some EU member States(the UK, France, Denmark and The Netherlands),that the OCTs are part of the EU family and that their economies need support from the EU. This concerns all British OCTs (including TCI), Dutch OCTs, French OCTs and Outermost Regions.

  OCTs related to
  The UNITED KINGDOM: Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Montserrat, St. Helena, Turks and Caicos Islands.
  FRANCE: French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Wallis and Futuna. French Outermost Regions in the Caribbean: Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guyana.
  THE NETHERLANDS: Aruba, The Netherlands Antilles (Curaçao, St. Maarten, Bonaire, Saba, St. Eustatius).
  DENMARK: Greenland.

  The EC would like to establish a regional ACP/OCT/Outermost region Platform in the Caribbean, but there is some delay/hesitation from ACP-Caribbean states. The question is: how do Caribbean OCTs see their future and relationship with other Caribbean States, what do they want? Is there a dialogue between OCT and ACP Caribbean?

  Dialogue with the OCTs is important to overcome ambivalence, distrust and misunderstanding between us. We could start with involving TCI and the other OCTs in this discussion and create our own platform.

• Carlyle Corbin on September 16th, 2009 at 6:32 pm

  I have been reading the important information on your website for a number of months, and am signed on to the updates. Your recent piece on the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) was particularly interesting. In this connection, I have a site, Overseas Territories Review,
  http://overseasreview.blogspot.com/2009/08/re-colonising-colony.html
  which covers issues in relation to the non-independent Caribbean and beyond. The most recent piece covered the colonial coup in the TCI. I am awaiting the response (delayed) of the UN to the political crisis there, recalling that the Honduras coup precipitated immediate diplomatic action. I have no illusions that there will be a comparable response re/ the TCI.

  All the best, and I look forward to following your work.

  Carlyle Corbin
  Advisor on Governance
  United States Virgin Islands