When the United Kingdom’s Opposition Leader, Labour Party head Jeremy Corbyn, made his startling statement in Parliament in the wake of the Panama Papers leak, that the government should now impose “direct rule” on its Overseas Territories, it sent shock waves over the Caribbean, especially here.

Premier Alden McLaughlin was quite rightly incensed and called the suggestion “preposterous.”

This is especially so when the Cayman Islands was never mentioned in any of the documents leaked.

Corbyn is the most left Labour Party leader elected since Michael Foot in 1980. He is absolutely not a member of the New Labour movement that swept to power under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. In fact he often voted against the Labour whip.

“As Labour Leader Corbyn advocates an anti-austerity platform of reversing austerity cuts to public services and welfare funding made since 2010, and proposes renationalisation of public utilities and the railways. A longstanding anti-war and anti-nuclear activist, Corbyn supports a foreign policy of military non-interventionism and a unilateral policy of nuclear disarmament. Corbyn is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Amnesty International and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). He was the national chair of the Stop the War Coalition from June 2011 until September 2015.”

“He was the most rebellious Labour MP in the 1997–2001 Parliament, the 2001–2005 Parliament and the 2005–2010 Parliament, defying the whip 428 times while Labour was in power. The left-wing Jacobin magazine described him as “a figure who for decades challenged them [Labour Party elites] from the backbench as one of the most rebellious left-wing members of parliament.”
SOURCE: Wikipedia

It is not surprising Corbyn is an enemy of “tax havens” and the “filthy rich”.

Last week, Corbyn in an interview with the BBC, said the Cayman Islands should conform with British tax laws.

“If the local government is simply going to condone this level of tax avoidance and tax evasion of money that has been made in Britain, then that’s something that has to be considered,” he said. “They’re not independent territories. They are self-governing, yes, but they’re British Crown dependent territories. Therefore, surely, there has to be an observance of U.K. tax law in those places.”

As Chairman of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange, Anthony Travers, said in his open letter to the Financial Times:

“Much as Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour party leader, may secretly admire Lord Palmerston, sending a gunboat to the Cayman Islands is constitutionally impermissible (“Cameron accused of backing down on tax havens”, FT.com, April 5). The Cayman Islands are internally self-governing. Nor on any factual analysis is it necessary to do so.

“The reason the Cayman Islands do not feature in the Panama Papers is that you would need to be unsound of mind to use the jurisdiction for any form of improper tax structuring. Because the British and Cayman Islands governments have set the global standard on the issue of tax transparency, HM Revenue & Customs, the Internal Revenue Service and the tax and law enforcement authorities of all EU jurisdictions, among others, have complete and unrestricted access to all beneficial ownership information on Cayman structures.”

McLaughlin is taking no chances, however, with Corbyn’s comments that appeal to the tabloid press that unfortunately loves sensationalism over facts because it sells copies, and promotes more Internet website hits.

He said, “I wish to be very clear that the government of the Cayman Islands takes the threat of ‘direct rule’ carried by Mr. Corbyn’s words most seriously. Indeed we have engaged top constitutional counsel in the United Kingdom to defend the interests of these islands through legal challenge and representations to the United Nations, should that become necessary.”

“I and my government, and in particular the Minister of Financial Services [Wayne Panton], continue to engage in constructive discussions with the United Kingdom Government regarding the effective and efficient provision of beneficial ownership information to the United Kingdom law enforcement and tax regulatory authorities in furtherance of the Cayman Islands’ commitment to fighting serious crime and tax fraud,” the premier added.

Can you imagine Direct Rule from a country thousands of miles away that has more pressing agendas in its own backyard with Parliamentary members who know absolutely nothing about us as is evident from the rhetoric spewing from their mouths?

And if that scenario is bad enough to imagine then think again if Labour were in power.

The thought is giving me nightmares. It should do the same to you, too.

Direct Rule from the UK. A terrible threat.