misrepresented'' over anti-gay comments in the Upper House.

Sen. Pamela Gordon Pamplin -- who said she did not agree with the 1994 Act legalising gay sex and would not have voted for it if she had been an MP -- insisted she had not called for the law's repeal.

She said: "My question was simply `did the new Government intend to revisit a particular piece of legislation?' '' She backtracked after Government Senate Leader Milton Scott warned the UK wanted capital and corporal punishment, as well as anti-gay sex laws, repealed in its its Overseas Territories.

He said the UK position was "if you don't want to do it, if the Country doesn't want to do it, then I'm going to do it for you''.

And he predicted that Britain would take the law into its own hands and change legislation by decree from London "unless we are prepared to do something ourselves''.

And -- in a reference to Independence -- he said: "It's the I-word which a lot of people don't want to talk about.''