Those people who keep threatening not to serve their voters by resigning from the Cabinet are trying to convince Bermudians that without them the Government cannot go on. They are saying: "Vote our way or you will be punished.'' Governments can and do go on when leaders change and when people quit the Cabinet. It happened here when Sir John Sharpe left. It happened in Britain when Lady Thatcher left. Resignations do not mean, as some people are trying to convince us, that the Government will fall or that there will be an election. If people resign because they cannot have their own way in a democracy, we will miss them. We will regret the loss of their service to Bermuda but there are people on the back bench, duly elected, who can replace them.

We must remember that.

We are told that if the people vote no to Independence there will be a "shift to the extreme right''. What extreme right? The extreme right disappeared with Concerned Bermudians. The UBP is a moderate conservative party which has been elected by the people for 30 years. Bermuda will not be taken over by people we have never known. Everyone with a chance to lead has been elected by the people of Bermuda. There are no bogeymen to be frightened of, or bogeywomen either.

We must remember that.

This so-called coalition between Premier the Hon. Sir John Swan, Mr. Philip Perinchief and Mr. Gilbert Darrell is not a marriage made in Heaven. At best it is a shotgun wedding of convenience and at worst an unholy alliance. The idea that politicians who are normally so far apart would get together simply because they favour Independence is so strange as to be bizarre. Mr. Philip Perinchief has already said publicly that this alliance is a "one night stand'' and that he would "go to bed with the devil''. All this is so strange in the context of Bermudian politics that many people find it hard to believe.

We must remember that.

We are being told that it is wrong for the banks to ask questions in their polls about the internal politics of the UBP. It has been called "a blatant form of interference''. It is suggested that "they want to run the politics from Front Street''. Yet the banks have conducted polls for years using the same pollsters as the UBP and there has been no previous complaint. In fact, the UBP has often been glad to have the banks spend the dollars. We are only getting complaints now that the pro-Independence politicians do not like the results they are hearing.

We must remember that.

We are being told that it is racist to oppose Independence. It is true that most whites oppose Independence but they are a minority. It is also true that the polls show a majority of black Bermudians opposing Independence. Blacks are the majority in Bermuda. Some pro-Independence politician is very confused.

We must remember that.

We keep being told that our dollar is strong and safe and that companies are still coming here. That's true. However, that's today and neither thing will be true if we go independent and the companies begin to leave.

We must remember that.

There are suggestions that anti-Independence Bermudians are out of date colonials who do not want Independence because they do not want to leave Britain ... the Mother Country. Britain does not seem to us to feature large in the decision on Independence of any except a small handful of people. The decision hangs on the certainty of Bermudians that Bermuda is a good country, the best of the islands. We have done well. We live well and educate our children well. We are successful despite our problems. We are happy with that and proud of that. Why change? We must remember that.