Parliament is meeting but the Premier is scheduled to be off island, attending the start of the Marion-Bermuda Yacht Race and Glenn Jones’ Bo’Sox opener.

The PLP has sent out the following:

The Progressive Labour Party is proud that Bermuda encourages free speech.  However, we discourage our members and supporters from mounting a counter demonstration at the House of Assembly on Friday.

We make this recommendation to avoid confrontation with vitriolic demonstrators such as those seen at the cabinet grounds this week.

I suppose that solves the embarrassment of earlier this week when a few dozen (economically dependent) supporters sagged against the 1,000 citizen protestors.

Given that stance, it is painfully ironic that the PLP has such problems with defending the Bermuda Constitution.

Similarly, I find it doublefaced that US legislators make statements like this:

Congressman Delahunt praised Premier Brown for his leadership, saying, “You as a moral leader have made the right decision, and we applaud you for it.”

With due respect, Congressman Delahunt would rapidly be an ex-congressman if he dared violate the Constitution in his own country, where they take these things seriously.  Moreover, the Congressman looks foolish speaking about morality when he clearly doesn’t know the whole story of the Premier’s misrule.

“Because it breaches the Constitution, this exchange of notes [leading to the Premier's Great Uighur adventure] which was negotiated and sent on June 10, was in our view, invalid. In other words, the Bermuda Government’s action to solicit the arrival of the four Uighurs was unacceptable. I talked to the Bermuda Government yesterday, June 16, and suggested to them that they should now consider carefully their next steps.”

However he adds that the Uighurs “cannot and should not go back” to Guantanamo Bay, adding that the UK, US and Bermuda needed to work with one another to find the right outcome.

The Uighur episode must be seperated from the conflict regarding Ewart Brown’s leadership.

Meanwhile, the Sun is reporting that the PLP backbenchers are backing off support for a no confidence vote for fear of losing the PLP’s majority in the House. They are at no risk of losing their majority.  Just their credibility.  If they don’t act, they are sowing the seeds for immense future problems for their party … and for all of Bermuda.  Their withdrawal would show that there is no action – no matter how irresponsible, harmful, or illegal – for which they’d be willing to act as a check or balance.

Moreover, the PLP’s spin tactics of pushing this all as a racial issue is further deepening the poison in Bermuda’s soul.  Today the Premier depicted the protests as “a perceived loss of privilege that has driven our whites into extreme anger”.

He knows better.  The whole idea of Rule of Law is that it provides equity of treatment for all.  The Rule of Law was key to breaking segregation.  When the that Rule of Law is bent to the changing desires of a single politician – and his party falls over in sycophancy – then no-one can count on this country.  And what do we have then?

(I find the silence of Bermuda’s lawyers regarding this Constitutional issue to be amazing and reprehensible.)

In a highly unusual move, a senior US official said Washington opted to keep details of the deal from London until the last minute to enable Britain to deny all knowledge of the deal and thus avoid China’s anger.

You can read this in several ways – one view is that Dr. Brown was looking for an angle to push the independence agenda with the UK.  Another view is that Dr. Brown got played way out of his league:

• The US knew they had an anti-UK zealot with a huge ego and hunger for attention and exploited it.  They offload a few Uighurs, create plausible deniability for their real ally (the UK), and leave Ewart to deal with the mess he’s created.
• Or they really don’t give a rats ass and are just shoving Uighurs in any tin pot country that will take ‘em, screw the consequences.

Dr. Brown doesn’t come out looking very good.  He told Parliament today that he did not tell his Cabinet and he did not tell the Governor because he knows to keep his mouth shut for top secret info!

It reminds me of that scam here a few years ago, when an overseas private detective convinced an expat accountant that he was being recruited as a UK secret agent, and should quietly leak all sorts of highly sensitive information, sssh don’t tell a soul. It was a tremendous embarrassment all round when  it was found out how easily impressed our so-called experts were, and willing to violate their positions of responsibility.

Picture this scenario:  “a little thank you call from the President and Ewart’s singing Yankee Doodle all around the Cabinet Office and getting Glenn to send a write up to the Howard alumni mag.”

Even if you don’t believe that Dr. Brown was used, it is undeniable that his little games with the Constitution have badly undermined the Rule of Law in Bermuda.

This fuss is not really about the uighurs.  It’s about the consistently murky and inappropriate behaviour of our political leadership.

Don’t stop the carnival.

Most Bermudians assume that the party leader of the party that dominates the House is automatically made Premier.  That is not the case.

Bermuda Constitution Section 58(1)
The Governor, acting in his discretion, shall appoint as the Premier the member of the House of Assembly who appears to him best able to command the confidence of a majority of the members of that House.

Herein lies the reason that so many of the Premier’s pet projects are being hastily re-shuffled on the legislative agenda.  Many have not been adequately exposed to – and support won from – parliamentarians.  A defeat on one of these bills, which are so clearly linked to the Premier, could lead to a sudden vote of no confidence in the Premier.

In such a situation, if the Opposition were to throw their support behind another PLP figure, Dr. Brown’s days would be decimally numbered.

Heck, a Cabinet drawn from both parties might be the best thing that ever happened to Bermuda.

Now, Dr. Brown is a smoky room tactician of considerable skill.  The question is whether the backbench and Opposition can exert their authority as Bermuda’s “check and balance” on unbridled power.

Clearly the Premier has moved hard to out-manoeuvre the dissenters who raised their objections last week.  But this move has some clear contradictions.

All Cabinet Ministers must make an oath under the Bermuda Constitution to act “for the good management of the public affairs of Bermuda”.

Bluntly, there are times when that may conflict with support for their Party Leader.

Do you want your political representatives to have allegiance to you the voter and the Bermuda Constitution, or to the Premier?

The PLP elite has gathered the wagons in a circle to protect the Premier in a cult of personality.   This means that, as an anonymous leaker told the media, “Whatever happens to him now, the party owns it.”

Bermuda has a bit of a conundrum:

• Our controversial Premier is the subject of a dispute within his own party on his suitability for the job.  His supporters and some of his detractors rightfully say that the Party Constitution must be followed in the resolution of that dispute, even if it has been ignored in the past.  It’s time to make the rules clear.
• But the problem arises when the Premier is accused so frequently of habitually skirting the rules.  Media reports that the Premier is allegedly seeking to force out the head of the Civil Service, apparently in contravention of Sections 81-82 of the Bermuda Constitution, are but the latest scandal feeding Bermuda’s bitter rumour mill.  If true, it’s a bold move on his part and reveals the power struggle that goes on even with the civil service.

If the “rebels” can’t find resolution within the rules, then they should withdraw from the party.

Bermuda has a long history, and a rapidly growing Government, but our culture of good governance may not be keeping up.   When will we say “enough is enough”?