Darius Tucker's resignation from the United Bermuda Party – before going before a disciplinary hearing for failing to vote on the party's no confidence motion – means that the Opposition has been weakened once again.

Mr. Tucker's explanation as to why he wasn't going to vote for the no confidence motion in the House of Assembly made little sense, and, by all accounts, his explanation on ZBM TV on Thursday night made even less.

Certainly, the notion that he resigned before going before the disciplinary panel to avoid causing them some discomfort is strange.

One imagines that his fellow MPs would have preferred to have suspended him for a period of time, as they did with Mark Pettingill, rather than have him leave the party outright.

Mr. Tucker will have a more complicated time explaining his decision to his UBP supporters and workers who helped to get him elected just 18 months ago.

In that context, his situation is slightly different from Wayne Furbert's, who has decades of relationships and work in Hamilton West to fall back on.

For the UBP as a whole, this makes its legitimacy as an Opposition party all the more tenuous. It is down to 12 MPs, and according to the most recent poll, has not been able to get much traction out of the Progressive Labour Party's recent woes.

That may still change, but at the moment, the UBP looks directionless, and Opposition Leader Kim Swan must move quickly to get a grip on his remaining MPs and to set a direction for the party.

There are examples of parties that have risen from the ashes, none more so than the PLP after its crushing 1985 general election defeat, and in that case, PLP leader the late Frederick Wade worked slowly and diligently to rebuild the party and to move it to the centre of the political spectrum.

In many ways, the UBP is in much better shape now than the PLP was then. But it has to regain credibility, recruit better candidates and set down an overarching vision of where it wants to take Bermuda if it wants to stop the haemorrhaging.

Wrong approach

Recently, Bermudians opposed to Premier Dr. Ewart Brown's handling of the Uighur situation and his leadership of the Island have been encouraged to sign a petition to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown asking him to remove his namesake.

This is an utterly foolish approach that threatens to set the Island back decades.

Those who have signed already should disavow their signatures while those considering signing should reject the notion.

As a self-governing British Overseas Territory, Bermudians have it within their own powers to change governments and leaders, and they have the means to do it, if that is their wish.

Similarly, those who wish Dr. Brown to remain as Premier have the same tools at their disposal.

What are those tools?

They can force change at the ballot box in a general election by voting for the party of their choice.

They can lobby MPs and political parties to express their dissatisfaction – or satisfaction – with the current direction of the Island.

They can, if they wish, join a political party and help to dislodge the current leadership an replace it with something more to their liking.

They can, as so many have done, write letters and e-mails to the media, call radio talk shows and so forth to express their unhappiness, if that is what they are.

They can, as so many have done, hold peaceful demonstrations and protests.

All of these are legitimate political tools. They will not bring about change overnight, because politics rarely works that way.

What is not right, and what will be ultimately self-defeating, is to appeal to another power – absent compelling evidence of wrongdoing, as appears to have been the case in the Turks and Caicos Islands – to bring about a change, not in government, but in leadership.

Just because people do not like what is going on, and are especially concerned about breaches in the Constitution and good governance, does not justify throwing out the rest of the Constitution and the rules by which Bermudians govern themselves. That makes no sense at all.