UK Ministers have told a Cayman Islands opposition delegation not to come to London because they are too busy to see the group, leaving organisers scrambling to find acceptable dates for a tour.

At the same time, Opposition Leader Alden McLaughlin has replaced North Side MLA Ezzard Miller at the head of the six-member team, which had originally hoped to meet a range of UK politicians in mid-March.

Telling Mr McLaughlin they were too busy, Henry Bellingham, Minister of Overseas Territories, and others said MPs were immersed in “Budget Week” and preoccupied by the Queen’s visit to the Houses of Parliament, among the busiest periods in the Westminster calendar.

Mr McLaughlin said the trip would be postponed, but was unsure when he might reschedule, citing Premier McKeeva Bush’s recent announcement that the Legislative Assembly would convene for a marathon 4-13 April session.

Meanwhile, he said, the delegation had expanded to include former Walkers’ attorney and past President of the Caymanian Bar Association, Wayne Panton, and Sister Islands MLA Moses Kirkconnell. The team, he said, would now comprise himself, Mr Miller, Mr Kirkconnell, Mr Panton, East End MLA Arden McLean and West Bay’s Concerned Citizens chief Alice Mae Coe.

Mr McLaughlin had originally opposed the UK tour, fearing it would prove ineffective, wasting limited resources, but said yesterday his interest had been rekindled by recent events.

“A number of things have transpired here that have given me increased concerns,” he said. “The first is the funds donated by Dart to East End, and the other thing is that it seems Mr Bush is not going to go along with the Electoral Boundary Commission and will try to add a seat to West Bay.”

He had changed his mind about the trip, he said, feeling that, as Leader of the Opposition, his presence would lend weight to the effort, opening doors that might otherwise remain closed.

“I never categorically said I would not go, but that I needed to be satisfied in certain respects,” he said.

Mr McLaughlin’s renewed fears are a reference to two recent announcements by Premier McKeeva Bush – the first, on 28 February, when he said he would give $250,000 of ForCayman Investment Alliance (FCIA) funds to East End community projects, administered by district independent political candidate John McLean Jr, bypassing elected opposition MLA Arden McLean.

The FCIA is a $1.5 billion, 30year partnership between Dart Realty and government for a series of community and infrastructure improvements in exchange for land concessions and building permissions

Mr Bush has rejected repeated opposition charges that the East End gift was a corrupt effort at political manipulation, while Dart Realty has declined to answer questions about its implications.

Meanwhile, moving to counter efforts by both Arden McLean and Mr Miller to convert Cayman’s 13 multi-seat constituencies into 16 single-member districts, Mr Bush has instead sought to add one seat to his own four-seat West Bay stronghold, another to George Town and one to Bodden Town. The Bush proposal opposes the constitutionally mandated call by Cayman’s Electoral Boundary Commission for 18 MLAs from single-seat districts.

“I’m glad [Mr McLaughlin] changed his mind,” Mr Miller said yesterday. “We absolutely are still going, but were told we couldn’t see the Foreign Affairs Committee because of issues regarding Syria and some commonwealth matters. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office couldn’t get confirmation from the Minister.”

Arden McLean said the delegation would leave as soon as they could schedule appointments. “Some couldn’t be made last week or this week. We want to meet Mr Bellingham, the All-Party Group and the Solicitor General.”

Mss Coe said only that the group was “rearranging the date” because “Her Majesty is speaking to Parliament and some of the people we are seeing would need to be there, so we are just waiting to hear. The postponement is for valid reasons.”

Mr McLaughlin said he was confident the visit would be effective, only that “the dates have been complicated by the proposed LA sitting on 4 April, so we have not fixed anything. We are waiting for the governor.

“The UK government has constitutional responsibility for good governance,” he said, contemplating the pending visit, “ and this would be directly within the governor’s remit. I am under no illusions, though, and there is nothing they are not aware of.

“We all know what happened in the Turks and Caicos Islands,” he said, referring to the UK’s 2009 removal of Premier Michael Misick for corruption, and London’s resumption of direct governance. “No one wants or expects that to happen. We just don’t want the Cayman Islands to get to that point.

“We have already seen what the UK is prepared to do, with the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility,” Mr McLaughlin said, alluding to November’s UK-Cayman financial-management agreement, “and there is no doubt in anyone’s mind this is about the whole operation of government.”