If there was ever a gift handed to an Opposition party, it was Premier Dr. Ewart Brown's handling of the Uighur issue.

With vast segments of the population opposed to Dr. Brown's secretive approach and violation of the Bermuda Constitution, there was ample public outrage on which to capitalise.

With Progressive Labour Party Ministers and MPs clearly unhappy with Dr. Brown, the UBP had a clear chance to divide its opponents.

With a controversial policy being roundly criticised, the UBP had a golden opportunity to say how it would have handled this issue had it been in government.

And yet, somehow, the United Bermuda Party managed to come out of Friday's no confidence debate looking weaker than it went in.

Not only did the party fail to carry the motion (and that was always a remote possibility), it failed to bring over a single PLP MP, failed to convince the sole Independent MP, their former leader Wayne Furbert, to vote with it and even saw one of its MPs, Darius Tucker, say he would vote against it before disappearing, and another, Mark Pettingill, abstaining.

How was this possible?

In part it was due to faulty tactics and overreaching, and in part, it would seem, to the party's continued search for an identity.

That's not to say that there were not excellent speeches in the course of the night from various Opposition MPs, most notably from John Barritt and, very late in the event, from Cole Simons.

But others, including Opposition Leader Kim Swan's closing speech, failed to convince.

In part, that's because the UBP's wording of the motion was never fully explained. A no confidence motion, whether it includes the Premier or not, is a no confidence motion against the whole government.

Former Premier Dame Jennifer Smith wondered why the UBP had not restricted itself to a motion of censure, similar to the one the PLP had passed with the assistance of UBP dissidents in 1996. Because, replied Trevor Moniz, one of the architects with Dame Jennifer of that motion, Dr. Brown had shown that he would pay no attention to such a rebuke. Perhaps not, but others would have.

Instead, the UBP, with the encouragement and help of PLP dissidents, who would later disappear into the mist, gambled that it could bring down Dr. Brown and force a leadership change. But the lack of clarity in the motion, the compromise move for an apology and the evaporation of any support from the PLP, put paid to that.

Indeed, few in the UBP seemed ready to take on the reins of government itself when tested on this point by the Government, or to argue that if necessary, they were ready for a general election.

When an Opposition party essentially says it does not want the governing party, to fall, it demonstrates its own weakness.

So where does the UBP go from here? Back to the drawing board? Again?

It should be obvious now that it needs to avoid the kind of conspiracies that were alleged to have been hatched in this motion and to trust their own members more than those on the Government benches.

They also need to be sure that they act on principle; if the UBP is a Government in waiting, it needs to act like one, not simply as a guerrilla group.

And it is not a contradiction to say that it needs to take a realistic view of what it can achieve, including how far it can go while retaining a consensus in its own ranks. In hindsight, a motion of censure might have passed, or at least dealt a heavy blow to Dr. Brown.

What is certain now is that the UBP, or some other grouping, needs to develop some strength based on common principles and an overarching philosophy of the kind of place Bermuda should be.

That's because now, more than ever, Bermuda needs a strong and united opposition.

Tomorrow: Divided Government