Dear Sir,

When Progressive Labour Party Leader Marc Bean was suspended from the House of Assembly by way of a motion tabled and carried by the One Bermuda Alliance, some commentators warned this was a precedent-setting blot on Bermuda’s political landscape.

Forty-six years ago, however, the United Bermuda Party majority government voted to suspend another Opposition member from the House.

On Friday, April 18, 1969, Roosevelt Brown was ordered to leave the House by the then Speaker “on the grounds of Mr Brown’s grave misconduct in the House”.

According to the House’s official journal record, sometime after Mr Brown’s departure from the House, the following occurred: “His Honour the Speaker reported to the House that the honourable member for Pembroke East, Mr Brown, who had been ordered to withdraw from the House for the remainder of the sitting had, before leaving and while still within the bar of the House, turned and shouted grossly indecent and insulting words.

“Mr Speaker then stated that [he] had no alternative but to name the honourable member for Pembroke East, Mr R Brown.

“Sir Henry Tucker moved that the honourable member for Pembroke East, Mr R Brown, be suspended from the service of the House for three sitting days, which was affirmed: Ayes 23, Nays 7.”

In this instance, according to The Royal Gazette, the Speaker was Lt Col JC Astwood. The mover of the motion was none other than the first government leader, Sir Henry Tucker.

While the journal of the House does not give further details of Mr Brown’s conduct, The Royal Gazette reported the following: “The ejection flare-up came when Mr Brown attempted to raise a point of order after a UBP speech, but the Speaker told him he could not do so because he had already spoken.

“Mr Brown said he wished to raise a point of information and did not want to talk.

“As government members chorused ‘sit down’, he crossed the chamber, banged his fist on the clerk’s table and repeated several times, ‘I dare any one of you to put me out’. Said the Speaker, ‘Mr Brown, you are guilty of the most gross misconduct and I ask you please to leave the House’.

“Mr Brown replied as leaving, ‘Sure I’ll leave, but I tell you Mr Speaker, you are all a bunch of a*****e creepers’.”

This incident caused quite a stir in the community, with The Bermuda Recorder taking to the streets of Hamilton and Pembroke East to get the opinions of the Bermudian public for their “On the Spot” feature column.

The point is, Mr Editor, the Opposition Leader’s recent suspension from Parliament by way of majority government vote is not the first time this has occurred.

The main difference with the recent suspension is the reaction of the Progressive Labour Party Members of Parliament.

In 1969, PLP MPs voted solidly against the motion to suspend Mr Brown. In 2015, they abstained from the vote to suspend Mr. Bean. In 1969, a collective formal expression of concern and “regret” for Mr Brown’s outburst was issued from the Opposition side of the House, before the end of the session. Whether the two Speakers in question endorsed the same process, I will leave others to debate.

Today, what I find most interesting, and ironic, is that the then suspended member (the late Roosevelt Brown, now known as Dr Pauulu Kamarakafego) and the then mover of the motion to suspend Mr Brown (the late Sir Henry James “Jack” Tucker) have both been posthumously honoured as National Heroes, with their respective photos and lists of achievements running side by side in an advertisement giving notice of National Heroes Day.

If I can share a bit of humour, as I read the cited accolades attributed to Sir Henry Tucker, I thought a typo had occurred when it was stated that he was a founding member of the “Forty Club”. I thought the word “thieves” had been accidentally omitted.

LeYoni Junos