The election last Thursday marked the day when the petals firmly came off the fading red rose that is the One Bermuda Alliance government.

This loss by its candidate, Andrew Simons, to now MP and former senator Diallo Rabain was by any measure extraordinary and sent a powerful message to the OBA and its supporters that the 2012 election, rather than ushering in a new era of dominance, might have been an anomaly.

The largely black voters — yes black, as we know that whites for the most do not swing politically in Bermuda, save for an on average 2 per cent of them — sent a message to the OBA and its government that after three years the promise of shared sacrifice has turned out to be a cruelly empty one.

This, as the burden of sacrifice continues to fall on vulnerable, hard-pressed households and communities from Dockyard to St David’s.

But what did we really expect? The present unemployment statistics now indicate that black unemployment is at 9 per cent. The corresponding figure for the white adult working-age population on the other hand lies at a fairly modest 4 per cent.

As I have stated before, most reputable economists will assert that an unemployment figure at 5 per cent or under, essentially represents full employment.

In addition, the workforce participation rate has dropped, indicating that persons have either stopped looking for work and/or that the anecdotal evidence which posits that hundreds of largely black Bermudians have given up on Bermuda and emigrated primarily to Britain, continues unabated.

Who would have thought that three years after the unfulfilled promises were first made in terms of an economic renaissance and jobs for all by the OBA that Bermudians, particularly growing numbers of our young Bermudians, would find themselves as economic migrants in a foreign land, thousands of miles from home.

In a previous op-ed, I stated that my guesstimate is that there may be at least 500 to 600 who have emigrated to Britain for reasons other than education, seeking jobs or relief just over the past three to five years alone. Certainly, the trend has accelerated since 2012.

I say guesstimate because as a country we still do not have definitive or quantitative data to give us an up-to-date and accurate picture of emigration trends.

A simple form would do the trick at the point of departure and I will be pushing that option upon the Government once the House resumes this month. As confirmed by Rabain and fellow MP Kim Wilson, by way of her recent forum, growing economic desperation, rising income inequality and incipient poverty are beginning to take hold in Bermuda. If there was one factor that drove the record numbers of voters to the polls, it was that. Growing numbers are entering their second and even third year of unemployment or underemployment.

As to the OBA government, all of this will mean that the level of black support that it enjoyed at the last election will continue to dissipate. More importantly, the hundreds of voters who sought to send the Progressive Labour Party a lesson by staying home now seem ready to re-engage with the political process, but not in support of the OBA.

Both have what I term buyer’s remorse.

Perhaps that is why, playing by the old United Bermuda Party playbook, the OBA and particularly home affairs minister Michael Fahy are seemingly determined to cook the electoral books once again by opening the floodgates to the granting of status to hundreds of long-term residents, most of whom will become newly minted voters by the next election.

And while they will seek to play down the racial and, yes, racist implications of the move by touting that some persons from the Caribbean will be included, the reality is that, as with the recent court decision by Chief Justice Ian Kawaley, I speculate that more than 80 per cent of persons eligible will be white and cite either Canada, Britain or the United States, and Western Europe as their place of birth.

Too many, particularly black Bermudians over the age of 40 years, would have seen this movie before.

In fact, the underdevelopment of Bermuda’s black community over the past 50 years has been predicated in large part by racially skewed and indeed racist immigration policies such as these that were designed to marginalise the black majority of Bermuda even as we were democratising the country in the post-1950s environment.

Is this a new formula or the old one dressed up in new clothing? Some will say that the results will be the same. That, as more and more black Bermudians seek to emigrate or in real terms flee to Britain to escape the deteriorating economic and social pressures here, the present government is working overtime to grant status to largely affluent foreign-born white residents.

Finally, I know that former MP Glenn Blakeney and his lovely wife must have enjoyed the satisfying irony of having the Premier, who seems to like nothing more than the well-placed photo op, welcoming the Danish swim team to Bermuda.

The Danes, who are preparing for the Olympics in Rio this summer, were here to use the pool at the National Aquatics Centre and had no idea that it was the OBA in Opposition then who were so critical of Blakeney’s decision to finish the project as the sports minister then. The project itself, among other things, was precisely designed and built to burnish Bermuda’s credentials as a credible destination for the type of sports tourism that the Premier is now eager to celebrate.

It also is not lost on Bermudians that the first-rate facility, contrary to the prognostications of the Premier’s own supporters at the time, is widely used by Bermudians throughout the year. This, too, will serve as a fitting tribute to a man — now retired from politics — who proved not only to be a good servant to his party, but also to his country throughout a long parliamentary career.

Stout and at times unrelenting in defence of his party, and more importantly his principles, Blakeney’s unbreakable and at times voluminous gift of gab was always leavened by the characteristic grace and charm that he effortlessly possesses in abundance — a Blakeney family trait.

I and all of my colleagues in the House of Assembly, on both sides of the aisle, will miss him. We wish him and his family well.

• Rolfe Commissiong is the Progressive Labour Party MP for Pembroke South East (Constituency 21)