Political activist Khalid Wasi is urging the United Bermuda Party not to bother with a leadership change — and just throw in the towel instead.

The UBP intends to get grassroots people involved in the decision-making process over whether Shadow Finance Minister Bob Richards should replace Kim Swan as leader of the party.

However, Mr. Wasi said those party members should really be voting on whether the party should continue at all.

"Given the fractured state of the UBP I wish to repeat the call, but this time to the branches to consider their true state and dissolve the organisation," Mr. Wasi told The Royal Gazette.

"If they want to take a branch vote, then vote on whether the party should dissolve and don't vote for a leader."

Mr. Wasi said veteran UBP MP John Barritt's announcement that he was considering quitting the party to run as an Independent MP was an obvious sign that something is fatally wrong.

"When John Barritt says it's time to change to something new, then by God it's time to change," said Mr. Wasi.

"I say so because while he is rational, he has painstakingly and slowly calculated the balance on the issues of the party's relevance and potential and now finally comes to the conclusion they need to pack it in.

"I think if his colleagues have a unanimous criticism of John it would be his indecisiveness so I have great respect for his timely position."

Offering hope to Bermuda's new political party, Mr. Wasi — whose own third party, the All Bermuda Congress, failed two years ago — said: "The greatest needs of any start-up organisation is the virtue of having its own innocence and clarity of vision and purpose.

"I think the idea intrinsic in the All Bermuda Congress has both the innocence and the clarity of purpose and direction. We don't need a fractured UBP at the polls or an alliance of a fractured UBP. If there is an alliance it must offer a broader alternative.

"I believe that people understand now what I argued for and I must not let the hopes of Bermudian people down.

"The greatest thing Bermudians need right now is hope. Hope that a good spirit and nature of a genuine cause can take Bermuda to a better place with good governance is what we want."