A government website has been set up (www.cabinetoffice.gov.ky) where the public is being invited to respond to eight main questions on the relationship the Cayman Islands has with the UK. The questions are: Challenges – Economic Development; Challenges – Everyday Life; Challenges – Politics & Government; Cooperation with the UK; Governance, financial management and economic planning; External Support; Cooperation between Territories; and Global profile of the Cayman Islands. Within these questions are a number of others and you add your response to the main questions in words that must not exceed 1800 characters. The website actually states there are six main questions so which two of the eight listed are not part of the main six is unknown.

The website follows the United Kingdom’s announcement it is reviewing its relationship with its overseas territories aiming to release a white paper next year outlining a new strategy in dealing with them. An earlier white paper on the subject was published in 1999.

Our Premier, Hon. McKeeva Bush said, “I urge every member of the public to take this opportunity the UK has provided and speak up. Do visit the webpage and learn for yourselves what the UK is proposing with the new White Paper 2012. It will define the relationship with each of the overseas territories since one size cannot fit all.”

Mr. Bush will need this information fairly quickly as he going to deliver it in London at the Overseas Territories Consultative Council meeting in late November.

On a number of occasions Mr. Bush has shown his inclination towards independence for the Cayman Islands from the UK saying he was tired of their ‘interference,’  ‘the goal posts have changed’ and that independence was an “inevitable step.” He even said, “(our children) are not going to be as tolerant as we have been to the administering powers.” However, he did caution at a public meeting in West Bay last week that he was not calling for independence. “I want the commission to fulfil its role to let people know the consequences of an independent Cayman,” he said.

The older Caymanians (some would say wiser) do not want Independence. They look at how history has a habit of repeating itself in nearly all the Caribbean countries that have taken that route. Poverty, misery and corruption have been the result. The young Caymanians are fed a daily diet of discontentment with our Mother and her ‘iron fist rule’ without any interest in their Overseas Territories. It amazes me to see some people actually believe the UK were wrong to go into Turks and Caicos Islands to end the rule of the staggeringly corrupt governing bodies. Are these people still unaware of what was going on there? One such person who said this on a local blog called the UK ‘dictators’ and actually found 49 people who agreed with him!

The middle aged are much more divided. The power hungry want independence now, the banking community and most businessmen are worried of its consequences and the rest either keep an open mind or are undecided.

I expect the ones who do the most shouting lauding the  “dictatorship” and “interference” banner under our Mother will eventually win. Then they will really find out what “dictatorship” is about!