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The UBP is writhing in what appears to be its death throes. For the past several years there

have been resignations, exposés, election losses and shufflings of leadership. This latest round

of defections is a serious body blow.  The party is going through serious problems, suffering its own divisions between conservatives and liberals, between blacks and whites, between the "old

guard" and the "young Turks".

PLP stalwarts must be clapping their hands with glee at these signs of the UBP's splintering. For one thing, it takes attention away from their own leadership issues, and gives Dr. Brown another chance to hang on to the Premiership. It is from Dr. Brown's camp that calls have been coming most loudly for the UBP to reform, restructure or

disband. They will no doubt hail Dr Brown, if he doesn't take credit himself, as the architect of the UBP's demise.

But the UBP doesn't look entirely dead yet. The party still has nine MPs, among them some of the more forcefully articulate of all MPs during parliamentary debates. The party also has a legacy, checkered though it may be, of assuring an economic wellbeing that has benefited us all.

Those who are sticking with the party are reminding us of its role in ushering in significant social reforms - modern education, an end to segregation, a resilient economy. Those who are branching out are pointing to the "better way" - an end to racial and partisan polarization, a fresh start.

While they envision a clean break, it will not be possible in my view for MPs who have run under the UBP banner to be seen as anything but UBP. Just by virtue of them having joined and run for the UBP and carried its banner in all their prior debates, they will have indelibly branded

themselves.

Additionally, no matter how far they distance themselves from the UBP and its history, they will be painted and repainted by Dr. Brown and co. as 'the UBP in disguise' or 'wolves in sheep's' clothing or anything he can think of to

void their legitimacy in the eyes of would-be supporters.

Whatever role they choose for themselves, from being "independent" to forming a party with a

distinctly different platform and face, they will be targets of Dr. Brown's propaganda machine to

label them as the old guard in new faces.

The December 2007 election is not forgotten. Dr. Brown's handpicked candidates used every tactic unimaginable to paint the UBP and its candidates as perpetuators of a master race vs. slavery

mentality of the past. Any individual or group that has been elected with such a painted party

won't be able to shed their association unless, that is, they follow previous examples and defect

entirely to the PLP.

I'd like to be proven wrong, but I am pessimistic. While efforts to bridge the polarization gap are to be encouraged, the party in power has found it can benefit from

divisiveness. Nothing the UBP or the new-BP can do will dissuade the PLP leadership from pursuing this deviant and divisive path.

What needs to happen is for the PLP rank and file - who have had enough of their leader's role in tearing this island further and further apart - to put an end to Dr. Brown's destructive leadership and truncate the succession plan he is putting into place.

I am also doubtful of the breakaway group's ability to deliver "a better way". How can

another run down another partisan path, only further dividing the political divide, be a

better way?

Still, there is movement. The breakaway could inspire a similar move from PLP MPs which, if

large enough, would make Dr. Brown's loyalists a minority.

My hat's off to the defectors for giving a big stir to Bermuda's political pot. That's a good

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