A poll, commissioned by a group pushing for a conference on constitutional reform and conducted by the Progressive Labour Party's own pollster, says that more than 75 percent of registered voters surveyed want a conference on changes to constituency boundaries.

Short of a referendum, it is hard to imagine a more forcible rejection of the way in which constitutional change is being brought by the British and Bermuda governments than the survey.

The fact that the poll, commissioned by the Association for Due Process and the Constitution released on Monday, was conducted by Walton Brown, the Progressive Labour Party's highly accurate pollster in the 1998 General Election, makes the survey's results virtually unimpeachable.

Not only does the poll show a three-quarters majority favouring a conference, but majorities also backed the view the Foreign and Commonwealth Office did not consult enough when it visited the Island earlier this year and the idea that a representative conference allowing for the participation of all interested groups is preferable to one limited to the political parties.

Because the survey also made scrupulous efforts to exclude the actual substance of constitutional change, it should also withstand criticism that it is some kind of white establishment plot aimed at blocking "one man one vote of roughly equal value''.

The poll should send an important message to Government and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which must now consider whether pushing ahead with the Government's plans will result in a debased Constitution in which the public has not stake and no confidence.

Indeed, the FCO now wishes to rethink its plans, such as they are. The Association for Due Process is giving it a choice between holding a constitutional conference as soon as possible or facing the spectre of a lengthy and difficult judicial review which it has no guarantee of winning.

Of the two choices, a conference in the autumn -- after interested parties spend a summer drafting and debating position papers -- may well be the most palatable approach, especially since the Boundaries Commission is no closer to meeting now than it was last six months ago when Premier Jennifer Smith was emphasising the urgent need to move ahead. The 2000 Census, essential in deciding how new boundaries are drawn, is still unfinished and nothing can be done until it is made public.

It may be, as Government Senator David Burch so memorably said, that "we (the PLP) don't care what you think'', but the Government should also be aware that it ignores the wishes of 75 percent of the electorate "at its peril''.