If Premier Alden McLaughlin doesn’t do another U-turn back to the original concept of One Man, One Vote, the one he campaigned on and the one 65% of the voters voted for in the Referendum, he is going to lose his public support in droves plus members of his party deserting him.

As I said in my last Editorial, the Premier has started committing political suicide along with the other members who have now done a U-turn. No one is going to trust the government and the one thing everyone has longed for is a government the public can trust.

The reason Hon. Deputy Premier, Moses Kirkconnell, says he has not heard one single person raise the issue of the One Man, One Vote (OMOV), is because people had assumed it was a done deal. In your constituency, Mr. Kirkconnell, the Sister Islands is voting as usual.

Of course the number one issue at the moment is jobs and the economy but mark my words any change to the original Single Member Constituencies (SMC) is going to result in unprecedented anger. If McLaughlin thinks any different he is living in cloud cuckoo land!

He has even lost the support of the wise and mature level-headed team member Anthony Eden and when the vote was taken in the Legislative Assembly on Friday Eden’s colleague Al Suckoo voted his conscience and also voted for the OMOV.

Four government members, Tara Rivers, Wayne Panton, Marco Archer and Osbourne Bodden were all missing and that spoke volumes.

How will anyone trust anything the Progressives ever say again? Not whilst Premier McLaughlin is at the helm is going to be the general opinion.

The so-called problems McLaughlin raised with smaller constituencies and demographics is absolute nonsense and I have never heard so much gobbledygook in all my life.

As I said before, I am not surprised at McLaughlin’s U-turn but I thought the rest of his cabinet members would tell him the facts of life. The SMCs has already been voted on. The public who voted in the Progressives want the original OMOV ratified and not the Premier’s hybrid bastardised version of it.

It was obvious so many of McLaughlin’s Cabinet were exceedingly uncomfortable with their leader’s U-turn. I just wish they had had the guts to have shown it and shot him down. They would have done him and their party a huge favour.

If the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Juliana O’Connor-Connolly, hadn’t come to the rescue of McLaughlin, his appalling U-turn would have ended with him losing. The OMOV would and should have been passed. He would have been spared now his presentation of his own version and trying to get it passed.

Hon. Premier, you have just lost the trust and support of your country. Hopefully it will only be for a brief moment. There is still time to listen. There is still time to learn. You would look a really big man if you admitted you were wrong today.

And if you are still in doubt take a look at the world. 95% have SMCs. And the other 5% (when they are allowed to speak) wished they did.

Arden McLean also harmed McLaughlin’s reputation when he revealed when he (McLaughlin) was leader of the opposition he had tried to cut a deal over the plan for a referendum on the issue of OMOV and single member constituencies. McLean said McLaughlin had offered to support the referendum plans only if McLean in turn supported the three additional members.

You have enemies, Hon. Premier. I am not one of them. But you have given them a powerful weapon. You have made your supporters very angry. Do the right thing – a U-turn back to what you promised and what WE want. Admit you have been wrong.

The people elected you and you are their servant. What you have achieved over the last ten months has been thrown away over your own personal preference that no one else wants. If you can’t see that there is no hope. You will have lost the biggest weapon you need most. The country behind you.

Please stop committing political suicide.