Government Minister Dale Butler claims he has been offered a future Cabinet position by Opposition Leader Wayne Furbert.

The Community Affairs and Sports Minister told that Mr. Furbert approached him recently and asked: ?If we are one short, what do you think??

Mr. Furbert said last night that the proposal was ?just a big joke? he made to his parliamentary colleague in the car park outside the House of Assembly.

He said: ?Dale Butler would be wishing Dixie that it was him. I was cracking jokes at him.?

Mr. Butler said he did not give Mr. Furbert an answer at the time. ?I said nothing; I didn?t have a response,? he said.

He added: ?I wouldn?t join them. I wouldn?t care even if they offered me the Premiership. I don?t think they are genuine.?

Mr. Furbert said soon after he became leader of the United Bermuda Party in January that if his party won power he would invite a member of the Progressive Labour Party (PLP) to join his Cabinet.

He said at the time he didn?t want to waste the intellect and talent of his political opponents.

?That?s why we have proposed inviting a member of the PLP to sit in our Cabinet,? he said. ?Bermuda is too small to discount anyone who is willing to make this little Island a better place.?

But Mr. Butler said he could not work with a party which did not ?have a genuine interest in the development and uplifting of black people and especially working class blacks?.

?I know Wayne Furbert thinks I?m a liberal,? he said. ?I?m one of the most liberal, easygoing blacks in the PLP.

?I get along well with them, I share information with them, I don?t have a problem with them. I don?t have a problem with any black who decides to join the UBP. That?s their prerogative. But I?m not.?

He claimed the UBP?s main focus was on safeguarding white business interests.

?They have no interest in ever working with working class people,? he said. ?Blacks who join that party want to be part of the middle class economic structure of Bermuda.

?Black people who want to join that party want to be white.?

He said he could cite personal examples of the party being ?nasty? to him and felt that the UBP had never acknowledged its part in past injustices.

Mr. Butler said he believed many whites on the Island ? and in the UBP ? still saw blacks as ?incapable, incompetent and unable?. He said: ?Blacks don?t have a business plan because they have not been given the business education that they need. If we did we?d be opening up more businesses.

?Black entrepreneurship hasn?t stepped forward. The real talents of the country will not develop until we remove these racial impediments.?

Mr. Furbert declined to respond to the criticisms of his party. But he described Mr. Butler?s remarks about the job offer as ?pure silliness?.

He said he didn?t think Mr. Butler would be one of the PLP members whom the UBP would approach if it was forming a Government.