United Bermuda Party MP Maxwell Burgess says his party has blown its election chances and a new grouping needs to be formed.

And he said the UBP?s team did not measure up to the Progressive Labour Party Cabinet and the PLP could be in power for a long time to come.

Mr. Burgess recently called for UBP leader Wayne Furbert to quit following several embarrassing resignations including MP Jamahl Simmons and party chairman Gwyneth Rawlins.

And in an exclusive interview with Mr. Burgess goes much further saying the party had effectively conceded the election.

He said of the UBP: ?They have blown its chances, I would have thought. I think it?s such a pity. ?But if you can?t come to grips with acknowledging and correcting what it is you have to do to get yourself to function at the max, how can you be trusted to do it for the country??

He said the party?s MPs did not measure up against the PLP team and that its inability to attract five or six potential Cabinet ministers hampered the party.

?When you look at the present Government and you look at the UBP?s shadow (team) ? you see what happened in 2003? I suspect you will see the same.?

Asked if the PLP had better team person for person, he said: ?That?s what I am saying, not all of them, but in many cases.?

He said the Opposition suffered from a chicken and egg situation meaning until people believed they were a viable alternative, people would not stick their necks out and join.

Changing that would take a leadership that prospective candidates could believe has the guts, talent and a feel-good factor to lead them to victory but Mr. Burgess said the party had not seen that since John Swan.

?I think people will not turn their backs on the PLP for any old alternative. Until such time as an alternative far more attractive comes along, it is safe to say it will be around for a while.

?You can love or hate Ewart Brown but you cannot deny the man?s capability, work ethic and charisma.

?I would think the UBP, in my view, has conceded the next election and will have to ask itself some fundamental questions.

?It think the next election is not so much a referendum on the PLP?s governance as on the United Bermuda?s Party?s future or absence there of.

?I think Bermuda will require a new party. I think the United Bermuda Party has demonstrated its inability to come to grips with the radical change required.

?In fairness most conservative parties find radical change difficult to comprehend let alone embrace and carry out.

?You need to start the party now and whoever wants to stay in the UBP stays with them ? you run against them.

?People can decide whether they want the UBP or they want the new party.?

Mr. Burgess is retiring from politics at the next election to concentrate on his business and his family. But he said if asked to join a new party he would have to consider it.

He said his failed UBP leadership bid in 2006, when he lost out to Wayne Furbert, had been about trying to save the UBP from years in the political wilderness with the message the party must change or die.

?In fact it would not, will not or cannot exist and hope to become the Government in its present form.?

In early January, Jamahl Simmons resigned the party after alleging a racist clique within his own branch were trying to remove him as MP.

But Mr. Burgess said Mr. Simmons? problems in Pembroke West should have been nipped in the bud rather than allowed to fester.

He said a meeting of the whole branch should have hammered out issues which would have been monitored and reported to the leader.

He said Mr. Simmons was without question a loss.

?Any party which loses a young man with years ahead of him with that level of potential has to see it as a bitter blow and failure to do so just shows the shape of the party.?

Mr. Simmons was the party?s Race Relations and Economic Empowerment spokesman.

However last week?s Shadow Cabinet Reshuffle saw that post abolished although Senator Gina Spence-Farmer was given the new post of Community, Cultural Affairs and Race Relations.

Mr. Burgess said it was a mistake to throw out the Race Relations and Economic Empowerment portfolio.

?When you have a party having allegations of race squarely in its lap and it takes the one ministry that was designed to address it and sends it out to the political wilderness, what does that tell you? It speaks of denial.

?In some ways the UBP is in the midst of raging storm and they are taking solace because they are resting in the eye of it. But they have to know the storm is not over yet.

?Anybody recognising the storm was still raging would not have thrown that ministry away.?

He said the UBP had moved backwards on the race issue since switching from Grant Gibbons to Wayne Furbert.

?Under Grant Gibbons the question of race and what we could reasonably be expected to do about it was on the agenda and was being worked on.

?There were committees doing work on it. In some ways that?s the irony of the UBP and its history.

?White leaders have historically made measured strides, but some strides in this whole area of race, and perhaps with the exception of Sir John Swan who had varying degrees of success on the subject, black leaders have not done as well.?

He said under Sir Edward Richards the UBP had to form a black caucus to get black issues on the agenda.

?In some ways, history repeats itself. I believe the UBP is heading that way ? to have a black caucus to ensure the needs of black Bermuda are in the fore of the party?s minds.?