ESPITE Premier Alex Scott's public position that much more informed debate is required before the PLP Government is ready to propose a formal position on the crucial question of Independence, political activist Calvin Smith is sure that the minds of the PLP leadership are, in fact, made up ? "all of them" are for Independence."

In response to a number of comments about the three-part "Guest Opinion" by investment manager and political commentator E.T. (Bob) Richards, recently published in the , Mr. Smith joined some prominent political commentators in praising the quality of recent debate on the subject, including Mr. Richards' contribution, but was in no doubt that he and the PLP leadership were in favour of Independence.

"It was a nice piece, well argued, but fortunately for people like me who are in favour of Independence, it may not have got a very wide readership! I understood it and I loved it, because my major was Economics, but I'm damn sure that some of my colleagues are going to look at it and say, 'What the hell is this bye talking about'!

"But seriously, I don't agree that we should stand where we are. What will make Independence go or not will depend on something Bob said in his piece. He talked of the need for the political parties to have the will to bring the people of Bermuda together. That is the key to the whole thing, because once we are together and we can break down this factionalism, then we can ride any wave."

Mr. Smith pointed out that the strongest early PLP proponents of Independence were no longer at the centre of political activity, but he was in no doubt about the PLP leadership's enthusiasm for going it alone.

"Of the people who were 'red-hot' for Independence, Freddie Wade is dead, and Arthur Hodgson and I are out of the party. We used to work very closely together and develop a lot of the ideas. There have been some radical changes in the party, with a lot of new personnel and a lot of new responsibility.

"I am not saying that they have to know everything about governing before they make a decision on Independence. I am only saying that there are so many immediate challenges, that they haven't really had a chance to come to grips with Independence. But, all of them, want it just as badly as I do ? Government, most of the party members, everybody.

"The only reason for that massive vote against Independence (in 1995) was that (then-PLP leader)Mr. Wade did not want it to come under the UBP. In order to do so, we had to go out there and confuse our people, and a lot of them are still confused.

However, Mr. Smith does not believe that, with hindsight, it would have been better for the PLP to have accepted Independence in 1995 under the auspices of the UBP Government.

"I mentioned earlier the level of mistrust in Bermuda, but it was 20 times worse back then. You even had black members on the other side talking as if they were white. I can hear (former UBP Deputy Premier) Jim Woolridge now, saying that if we got Independence, we would be just like the islands to the south of us.

"We were genuinely scared of the UBP going ahead with it, because we had no idea what they would do constitutionally. I wouldn't care now, and a strong minority of our people would not have cared then!"

Mr. Smith believed that fundamental changes in the political landscape made many Bermudians much more comfortable with the prospect of Independence.

"One thing that frightened me at that time was the willingness of my race to allow the white minority to dictate to it politically, because they were afraid of the responsibility of Government. That scared the hell out of me. How could we become a real democracy if people were afraid to change the Government?

"It's not a problem now, because people have seen the PLP govern, and the world hasn't come to an end. On the other hand, we don't have Utopia either! But we aren't scared any more."

, Mr. Smith saw a problem that pro-Independence forces would have in countering Mr. Richards' conclusions if the debate was distilled to purely economic prospects.

"If someone came along tomorrow, and articulated all of the great things that would happen materially for Bermuda under Independence, we would do it the next day. There is no doubt that we are asking people to make a big leap.

"It's very easy to say, for example, we are losing a million dollars, and if we take this step, we will turn it around and make a million dollars. It's not as exciting to say, we're making a million dollars, and if we take this action, we can make two million dollars.

"Emotionally, we can take our people there, use all the old idioms like 'the promised land', but I wouldn't support that approach. We have got to be able to promise all the people something materially better in order to get them on board.

"We have got to do it in such a way that both races join hands. Right now, that's the core of the problem. It will happen to the degree that we start listening to each other. Too often, we say to each other, 'But you don't understand.' Right there, the conversation's finished."

For Mr. Smith, the question of Independence comes down to a stark choice between what he sees as the developing "United States of Europe" or the nascent, hemispheric "United States of the Americas".

"Bermuda will be faced with entry into one of these two major organisations, which will be quite a choice for us. We have global connections with Europe through Britain, and very powerful economic and cultural connections with the US.

"That doesn't mean that we remain dependent on England to lead us into one organisation or the other. What I see is we become Independent, and enter one of these associations on an equal footing with every other member. We have to make a choice, but what we have to ask ourselves is, do we make a choice as a dependency of England, with no experience of nationhood, or as a nation?"

Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons believed that recent revelations of historical PLP party machinations on the subject had seriously compromised the debate.

"The key issue here is trust. I think that the credibility of Mr.Scott and the PLP in handling this whole issue has been undermined terribly by Arthur Hodgson's very revealing recent comments to the effect that the PLP did not trust their own people to make the right decision on this.

"That sort of approach may work in other places, but Bermudians are sophisticated and intelligent and are perfectly capable of making their own decisions. Given the total lack of trust and credibility they have created around this issue, it's even more important that we properly define the process up front.

"In other words, who decides whether we should go Independent, and how should the decision be made? To go down the road to debating one of the most important issues Bermuda faces without knowing up front if the people of Bermuda will really have an opportunity to make a decision on this is just ludicrous."

Political activist Dr. Eva Hodgson was much less enthusiastic about Independence, but thought that Mr. Richards had made a useful contribution to the debate.

"I thought he argued his case well, but I am not passionate about Independence. He came down against Independence, and I thought he made a very good job of making his case. I don't know how many people will be swayed by his argument.

"In general, people don't read a lot! Most of the people I know are passionately in favour of Independence, but I don't know that many people. I suspect that those 'on the fence' are not doing too much thinking or reading about it.

"Certainly, those in favour now are not going to be swayed by anything. It's been one of my irritations, with some of the people who want Independence, that it is based so much on provoking an emotional response. Bob Richards talked of being asked by Caribbean friends if Bermuda was a colony.

"The embarrassment some people feel with that question is, in the final analysis, an emotional response to the implications of the question, demeaning you for still living in a colony. It has nothing to do with all of the other rational arguments that he gave against Independence, but the point is that, even Mr. Richards had something of an emotional response to that question.

"It annoys me, because, like some comments at the recent BIU seminar, where some people talked about the importance of a flag, which is also designed to provoke an emotional response, it is all just 'fluff'. We are relatively self-governing. (Premier) Alex Scott went on about not being able to appoint the Chief Justice, but that was not something that touched my pride or my emotions."

Outerbridge, one of the four founders of the political 'think-tank' Foundation for Bermuda Studies, concluded that full Independence for Bermuda was an idea whose time has passed.

"Before the handing back of Hong Kong, I was very much in favour of Independence, because of what the UK was not giving us in terms of equality with places like Gibraltar. Because of the inward immigration consequences, England seemed to follow a two-track philosophy.

"However, after Hong Kong was resolved and Bermudians were given full British citizenship, I saw a great wrong being righted. There are so many positive benefits for young Bermudians in being a part of the European Community.

"You have to ask, Independence from what? These days, all countries are forming huge trading blocks, and it's really a question of which one you are part of.

"If we are closer to the EC eventually, and have some political status in Brussels, I think that would be a positive move, from the point of view of the legacy of many Bermudian founding families. At the same time, there is nothing wrong with having associate status at Caricom, because of that link to where so many Bermudians come from.

"I don't feel that Independence, because it will make people arbitrarily give up rights to other places through birth and family ties, is positive. I don't think we want to endanger our economy by being entirely swept into the EC, but we could work something like the Channel Islands.

"Perhaps we could negotiate associated statehood, instead of remaining a colony. The word has such a negative pejorative. A lot of it is word play. We are moving towards a world economy that is dominated by multi-national corporations, and we should try to stay in the middle of the huge trading blocks. We have always been good at trading. Everything is inter-dependent, and the concept of 'independence' is dead."