Bermuda, a senior lawyer said last week.

And Mrs. Dianna Kempe, managing partner at Appleby, Spurling and Kempe, said prospective clients are not reacting well to the uncertainty the Indepedendence debate is creating.

At the same time, Bermuda's main international business rival, the Cayman Islands, is capitalising on the debate and using it as a marketing tool to lure business there.

The Caymans, which has no interest in Independence, is using that fact in marketing materials.

Mrs. Kempe said her firm's clients want constitutional stability and consistency in an offshore jurisdiction.

"By virtue of the uncertainty that we are going through at the moment, the clients have reacted to that and they have not reacted positively,'' she said.

"There is no doubt that international business is concerned. Those clients who are out in the market looking for an offshore jurisdiction, they hear the whole issue of independence on the front burner in every single jurisdiction.

"There have been articles in Hong Kong and then there was the BBC special report on Bermuda and Independence, which I was told was originally supposed to be focused far more on the Police issue with the Governor.

"Once they found out about Independence the whole emphasis was changed and the Police Commissioner story got lost as old news.'' She said AS&K lawyers in Hong Kong have had numerous enquiries about Independence in the last month.

Mrs. Dianna Kempe