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You have to admire their lip service.

The PLP and independence, at least on paper, is as sure as peaches and cream, Crown and Anchor, and codfish and potatoes.

Their belief in independence dates from the 1950s and early 1960s when colonies around the world were cutting their ties to Mother Countries.

Their loyalty to the issue has remained over the decades despite massive changes in the way we live our lives in the world.

Independence has been an important tool PLP leaders use to establish his or her bona fides with the party faithful and its elite. All have expressed belief in the issue, some with passion, others with forceful determination; all citing the logic of national growth.

Independence was also a useful counterpoint to the United Bermuda Party, with PLP leaders using it to portray the UBP as representing something Old World that needed to be ditched.

And so when one thinks of the PLP, one cannot but help see independence as an integral part of its history and beliefs.

So it is amazing to me that despite all the passion and the vision, the PLP have always shied from pulling the trigger on this core issue.

Time and again they have shown their belief in independence to be more about lip service than anything else.

Let's look at the record.

Frederick Wade had his chance to move the country toward independence with the 1995 referendum, but instead organized a boycott of the vote. The PLP taking the country to independence was more important than independence.

Dame Jennifer Smith, on leading the first-ever PLP Government, said that independence was for some time later. There was too much else to do.

Then came Alex Scott, who in 2004 initiated the Bermuda Independence Commission, and then did... nothing.

Now we have Dr. Ewart Brown, who also speaks of an independent Bermuda, but first things first, like more education.

The people, it seems, just don't get it yet, according to Dr. Brown. Poor us. All we need to do is hear more from on high to see the light.

The fly in the ointment of the PLP's dreams of independence is public opinion. There's just no getting around this one. The more people have learned about it, the more the status quo is preferred; at least that's what happened with the BIC report.

So get used to this never-ending charade.

The PLP will keep the flame alive hoping that Bermudian common sense will give way to what Dr. Brown suggests is the next level in our political maturity.

Until that time, there will be more talk, more vision and more education.

But if the past is any indication of the future, it will amount to nothing more than more lip service.[[In-content Ad]]

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