Tuesday, December 8 – Premier Honourable Ralph T. O’Neal, OBE plans to make a case for Cabinet to play a role in determining the award of British citizenship, when the Eleventh Overseas Territories Consultative Council and General White Paper Forum is held in London this week.
A review of the 1999 White Paper, Partnership for Progress and Prosperity is one of the key items on the agenda and it is in discussion on this that Premier O’Neal plans to highlight his concern about the power of the Governor, who represents Her Majesty, The Queen . “I think it is wrong for the Governor alone to naturalise people to stay here. The Cabinet should have a say in it just like Cabinet decides on residents and belongership,” Honourable O’Neal stated.
Although he acknowledges the role of the UK Government in the process, the Premier said elected officials ought to have a role as well. “A person naturalised as a British subject would have the right to stay here as long as he wants therefore the persons elected by the people of this Territory should have a say in it. I think it is totally unreasonable to have the Governor himself making the decision. I do not care what process it goes through, one process should be a matter of a Cabinet decision,” he said.
Discussion on the 1999 White Paper is also expected to focus on the core themes in the White Paper, namely Government and Constitutional Developments; Human Rights; Financial Services; Crime; Economic Development and Financial Management; Environment and The Way Forward.
According to the invitation letter sent to the Premier, the aim of the forum is “to consider how our relationship has developed over the past ten years and how we see it moving forward in the future.” The letter also acknowledges that the forum “could help inform any possible future policy review of the relationship between the UK and the Overseas Territories.”
At the OTCC meeting, Premier O’Neal also plans to register his sentiments on developments in the Turks and Caicos Islands where Premier Michael Misick resigned from office earlier this year and the UK Government placed all executive and legislative powers in the hands of the Governor.
Premier O’Neal does not believe the necessary stop gaps were instituted to prevent the need for such drastic action. “If the Premier of the Turks and Caicos has done something ultra vires the constitution, he would have to suffer the consequences but I believe that the Governor is there and he must have known what was going on,” Honourable O’Neal said.
Quoting from a constitutional lawyer, the Premier said, “The sovereign is there to warn and advise the Prime Minister, so in the case of the Turks and Caicos, the Governor represents the sovereign; he should have been able to warn and advise the Premier that if he continued to follow that path, this could happen or that could happen, but I did not hear that that was done. I did not hear there was a commission of inquiry set up to investigate. To deprive the people of their rights, as it were to take away some of the parts of the constitution, I think it is doing a wrong thing to the people.”
Premier O’Neal also plans to comment on the recently imposed increase in the UK’s Air Passenger Duty, which essentially means that tourists travelling to the BVI and other Caribbean destinations will have to pay more than those embarking on shorter flights to other parts of Europe and the United States.
Premier O’Neal believes the increased tax will deter travellers from coming to the BVI. “The British market is a very important market to the BVI and we do not want to lose that so we will have to make our protest known to the UK Government,” he said.
Established in 1999, the OTCC meets annually in London, providing a forum to facilitate discussion of key policy issues between the Heads of Government in British overseas territories like the BVI and British Ministers.
British Virgin Islands News