Question: How do you see the issue of independence? Answer: As another step along the way in the evolution of the country. This country started off as a company town. We have evolved, there's been ups and downs, but there's been fairly steady progress on many fronts. Independence will improve rights and privileges further, which will directly benefit people. Particularly in being able to negotiate things that are negotiated now through Whitehall.

Q: It's 40 years after the winds of change speech which gave the green light for colonies to split from Britain. Bermuda is one of the last colonies despite being very wealthy. What are the reasons for that? A: Those people who have always been against independence have held political power right up until November 1998. One of the reasons UBP supporters might fear independence is the same sort of reason they feared a PLP government -- a loss of privilege. Their privilege may be eroded further with independence.

You can understand them clutching on for dear life. They have been perfectly comfortable that we get the best of both worlds. But that's questionable because the sorts of things that mitigate towards our wellbeing now are rights, for instance, to be able to negotiate airline routes and the climate of our business community which make the real difference. We have a real history of fear and this has been the big bugaboo when it comes to independence, most of the arguments are not based on fact. It's just like the situation before the PLP came to power. The UBP said all hell will break loose if we came to power, businesses will flee the country, the hotels will wind down and leave, and the country will go to hell in a hand basket. But quite the reverse is happening. As we said before the election -- we don't have any conflict of interest between business and government because we don't own the businesses. We can get on with the job of running the country fairly and providing the environment in which businesses can thrive. Business is now seeing that -- look at the praise Eldon Trimingham heaped on the Minister of Finance -- you would never have thought just five years ago that you would ever live to see the day that a Trimingham would stack praise on the shoulders of a PLP finance minister. So the winds of change are still blowing in the remaining colonies. Britain is obviously quite keen to see the end of the dependent territories and we will be better off. Given a better informed public and another opportunity for a referendum and getting all the people's input I think you will find a much larger number supporting independence just as virtually all the politicians do now. Virtually all the amendments to the Constitution put forward by the honourable Erwin Adderley of the loyal Opposition such as the remaining powers of the Governor would be taken by the Government, were things that need to be done prior to Bermuda going independent. They were saying let's go independent without saying it. They were doing everything but say it.

Q: What are they doing there? A: Either it was a bit of political subterfuge to press the envelope to push Whitehall further than it would go so Whitehall would reject the whole lot or maybe the UBP politicians, if not their support are not so fearful of independence as they make out. When you had the independence thing under John Swan quite a number of the UBP parliamentarians supported him.

Q: Is it time to get the ball rolling on independence? A: That's not for Delaey Robinson to say. That's for the leadership. We are taking steps in the evolution of the country, including moving towards single seats. There will be more steps in terms of cleaning up the Constitution as the British White Paper suggests prior to the Dependent Territories going independent. The final step would be the PLP going to an election and saying we are ready now.

Q: Would an election be the best way to do it? A: An election is the PLP way of doing it.

Q: Walton Brown says if you put it on an election, people who don't like the party who are putting it forward might vote against them for that reason -- even if they like the idea of independence, just as Swan lost out when the PLP boycotted the referendum. Why not put it on a referendum? A: No, I don't think that will materialise.

Q: Why? Are you are so confident of your support? A: Yes, if we took the fear factor out. We have a lot of fear out there, but not a lot of information. The fear isn't in the minds of those who voted for us in the last election. We got extra voters last time because they didn't believe the scaremongerers. I suspect you will find a lot of UBP people who don't believe the scare tactics about independence. And those people too are nationalists. Swan did have some following after all.

Q: So you are asking UBP people to vote against their party and put you in power for another five years in an independent Bermuda? They might like independence but why would they vote to put you in charge? A: I don't think we should tie ourselves up in knots on this one.

Q: You mention about information. Is it time to get a bit more information on the issue out to people? A: As the Government proceeds in an orderly process to independence so information will be provided to the public which will remove unjustified fears.

Q: You mention the fear factor. Trevor Moniz says the countries down south are corrupt one-party states all going to pot.

A: That's obvious scaremongering right there. Is he talking about all those countries down south? Q: Antigua and Bahamas are the examples he mentions. He says they are corrupt one-party states with nepotism, drugs and gangsters.

A: We have drugs and gangsters here. I don't think you have one-party states down there either. The PLP took the Bahamas to independence and they won from the FLN or whatever it was and the other lot came back to power again. The PLP haven't been in all the time. For him to say they are a one-party state is just nonsense. I just dismiss him because he has departed so far from the truth.

Q: There is a best of the both worlds lobby who say Bermuda is more or less running its own affairs and doing so well financially. What do you say to them? A: Well because we are doing so well any improvements are marginal but they are important. One marginal improvement would be being independent and being able to develop our own airline services.

Q: Walton Brown was talking about a lack of national identity. What is it now and what will it be after independence? A: I don't think we have a problem with it. We might have a better technical definition of what a citizen is after this because we can hammer those things out -- who is a citizen and who isn't. But beyond that you are talking about something esoteric -- culture and things which are much more difficult to pin down and some Bermudians feel less secure about those things than others. That will always be the case bearing in mind the history we have had where the sorts of things you took pride in weren't open to all. Right up to today you have one third of the population with two thirds of the wealth. If you wanted to identify with say, the hospitality industry, where would a black Bermudian identify himself? Well he wouldn't identify himself as a manager or owner. If you form your national identity on the things your country does then where would most black Bermudians find themselves? Is theirs a national music? There's certainly a national dialect. There are cultural things that identify Bermudians. Even those good parts of our national identity have been denied us so when people talk about our architecture, the bulk of us have not been slightly interested. Why? Because our national architecture has been enshrined in buildings which aren't owned by us. But we should be interested because it was our people who built them. Why should we be proud of our maritime past? Because it was our people who piloted and built the ships and ran the ships.

There's ample to be proud of what our people produced even as slaves. Of course that doesn't come across. So when you talk about national identity and what to be proud of, people tend not to be proud of slavery, the people who descended from the slave masters tend to cower and don't even want to talk about it. And people who are descended from the slaves beat their chest and say how horrible it was. Rather than looking at what actually went on. I am not saying slavery wasn't horrible. But by just focusing on that you miss on what contributions made to Bermuda. You can point to any of the buildings in St. George's.

Q: You mentioned earlier about people not owning wealth. Trevor Moniz says implicit in the drive for independence is that deprived people will be economically better off. But he says supporters are saying they haven't gained.

A: He's talking real tripe there. We are going into our third year. Even if you were expecting miracles, how many miracles do you think can be brought about in that time? Improvements to people's wellbeing nowadays are marginal.

It's not going to be like winning the Lotto. And we said they are not going to come about without people working hard. We have just said we are going to level the playing field so it's not about who you know. The PLP are going to grow a bigger pie, slowly but surely, and more people will get a slice. He's going to have to change his tune soon. The Rosewood is well on it's way, Club Med after years and years of Jim Woolridge having left it fallow when he could have developed it and he didn't. But Mr. Moniz is going to judge us after two years on their 30-year record? Q: Mr. Moniz says countries such as Jersey, Guernsey, the Caymans and here appeal to business because they have Britain's Privy Council as a final court of appeal. What do you say? A: I don't think you are going to suddenly see instability in Bermuda because Britain wasn't there as the mother country. That would be to argue you have the threat of British troops being held over our head to keep us stable.

That's not true because money hasn't gone anywhere under a PLP government and it won't go anywhere under independence either. Money will continue to keep us stable.

Q: Where will Bermuda face internationally after independence, you have a British, American and Caribbean influence. Do you think any of that will change? A: No, our main trading partner is the US. This will continue. Most of the cultural stuff on the box is American, that will continue. We might make minuscule inroads into stabilising and improving that cultural entity which is Bermudian.

Q: Joyce Hall talks about a common British heritage and Bermuda being Britain's oldest colony. What's do you say? A: What can I say, it's a load of old codswallop.

Q: She argues therefore Bermuda is linked to Britain.

A: So? We will still have those Commonwealth links, just as Canada is linked to the Commonwealth etc. We will not lose our Britishness. Many of us have relatives, or are descended from British ancestors, that won't change. Some of us went to school there and have slightly British accents. That's not going to change just because we are independent. Our Britishness will still be there.

It is not propped up by very much now by being a dependent territory. So that's an empty statement of Joyce Hall's to say that our Britishness is propped up by way of being a dependent territory. That is rubbish. Our Britishness is there from long tradition and long connections with Britain which aren't broken at independence.

Q: Trevor Moniz says he fears that with independence Bermuda will merely replace British claptrap with a lot of nationalistic claptrap. Do you see Bermuda becoming more nationalistic? A: Personally I can almost say I hate nationalism. I am not a strong supporter of it, in itself because I am privileged to have seen quite a lot of the world. I have been round it a few times. I would love to see us drop barriers to countries even further than they have done already. They have dropped barriers in Europe and I would like to see them dropped on a global scale. But I am a firm believer in the retention of local culture and we should do things that enhance that. Dropping nationalism doesn't mean dropping culture. On the other hand nationalism has been used for the war effort to maintain freedom which would have been lost if the Nazis had prevailed.

Independence Clearly it helped get countries working on a war effort. In post war years nationalism has helped countries energise their industrial machines. Clearly nationalism has been used to benefit countries and it could be used to benefit Bermuda.

Q: Isn't Bermuda a bit too sophisticated for that? A: No, we still have some awful problems. One of the things nationalism could, hopefully, do is take the race thing and put it aside. Wouldn't it be wonderful for Bermuda if everything didn't have to be measured in terms of race -- we could start to think of ourselves as Bermudian and maybe it is us against the rest of the world if you have to be against somebody. So we don't waste quite so much energy on this silly race thing. It is awful that we still in the year 2000 spend quite so much energy and time on black and white issues. It's terrible, considering we have been here nearly 400 years. Isn't that enough time to work things out? Delaey Robinson: Britain is obviously quite keen to see the end of the dependent territories and we will be better off.