Dear Sir,

By trying to persuade Bermudians that they get some special status attached to them because of their birth, the Progressive Labour Party has created a false battlefield on which to fight the One Bermuda Alliance.

In today’s world, “Birthright Citizenship” is a thing of the past.

The overwhelming majority of the world’s countries do not grant citizenship automatically at birth. Of the world’s 40 or so developed countries, as defined by the International Monetary Fund, only the United States and Canada cling to it, and the US is most unlikely to continue to do so, given its grave problems with illegal aliens.

Our laws treat all Bermudians as equals, whether by birth or by grant of status.

If you think about it for a moment, you will realise that they were written in that way to protect Bermudians, not disadvantage them.

If we granted citizenship to anyone born here, it would not be very many years in today’s global economic climate before those born here without Bermudian family would become a significant demographic category, competing with us for jobs, housing and so on.

How much worse would the effect of an economic setback such as we are suffering today have been if we had created that kind of loophole for people to push their children through?

Driving a wedge between born Bermudians and Bermudians by status is not a constructive political tactic for the Opposition to use just at the moment.

We have very large problems to overcome in our economy. This is the worst possible time to be squabbling among ourselves about things such as race and citizenship. This is a time when all of us should be putting our shoulders to the wheel to push and pull Bermuda out of the deep rut it was driven into.

I’m not saying the Opposition should ignore issues that need addressing. No, it should be the best Opposition it can be. But this is not the time to create issues; to play political games in order to get one up on the Government. This is a manufactured issue. They’re not dumb. They know that as well as I do.

Here’s Bermuda’s situation right now — the voters know Bermuda is in economic difficulty. A large number of them are in pain like never before because of it.

What the vast majority of them want is for the people they elected as their representatives to do their damn jobs. They couldn’t care less who’s cleverest, or who plays the game of politics best.

They want solutions. They want people working together to find them. Not tomorrow, not next week. Right now.

EX-POLITICIAN