On this date in 1978, the British Government intended to push Bermuda towards independence, according to recently declassified documents.

A cable sent from the London Embassy to the US Secretary of State and US Consulate, dated October 30, 1978, detailed conversations between Ted Rowlands, then Minister for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Lord Pitt, who headed the commission that wrote the Pitt Report.

Noting the 1977 riots, the cable writer states: “Both believe, with varying degrees of intensity, that Bermuda should move towards independence, social and political reforms must be carried out before independence can be granted, the current Bermuda Government cannot be relied upon to carry out the needed reforms on its own, and that the failure to carry them out will destine Bermuda to continued and probably escalating levels of civil disorder and violence.

“HMG, accordingly, will keep pressure on the Bermuda Government to implement the Pitt Report recommendations and nudge it towards independence.”

The document, declassified last year and republished on WikiLeaks this year, states that the British Government believed that Bermuda was economically ready for independence, but the comprehensive social and political reform described in the Pitt Report must first be put in place.

“The Bermuda Government committed itself to implementing the social policy recommendations, but is reluctant to proceed with the special conference to deal with the political reform recommendations: elimination of the ‘emigrant’ franchise, extension of the franchise downward to age 18 and revision of the current two-seat constituency arrangement,” the cable states.

“The history of Bermuda shows that island governments have failed notably in implementing reform measures, whether social or political, recommended by previous bodies such as the Pitt Commission.

“The current government’s reluctance to proceed quickly with the political reforms may in part be due to its belief that a conservative government might come to power in the UK and be more sympathetic, but is due principally to the government’s unwillingness to disturb significantly the institutional status quo.”

The report also states that the British Government was not prepared to send in troops should civil unrest on the Island return, adding that they intended to bill the Bermuda Government for the troops sent to the Island the previous year.

The report claims offering troops in the future would “encourage the Bermuda Government to behave irresponsibly”.

It also criticised Premier David Gibbons, calling him a “well-intentioned man, but not an effective politician”, and the right-leaning members of his Cabinet, who were compared with Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith.

“His commissioning of opinion research and then using the results to formulate government policy reveals that he thinks like a businessman trying to satisfy a market rather than a political leader,” the document states. “His inability to dominate his own Cabinet and party — graphically illustrated during Mr Rowlands’s visit — shows that he is not in control.”

A separate cable, dated October 18, 1978, describes the 22-hour whirlwind visit as “humiliating” to both Mr Rowlands and Britain. The writer states Mr Rowlands travelled to the Island on the urging of the Governor, Sir Peter Ramsbotham, to push Bermuda towards constitutional reform, but the effort backfired.

During an evening meeting on October 9, the Premier agreed to set a date for a constitutional conference before Mr Rowlands left the Island the next day. This message was conveyed to the Progressive Labour Party on October 10 and relayed to the press. However, that afternoon, Mr Rowlands and the Governor were “castigated” by the UBP Cabinet for their perceived push for reform, with Mr Gibbons stating that he had miscalculated the feelings of his Cabinet and that other issues in the Pitt Report should be addressed before a date for the conference was set.

“The atmosphere was reportedly tense and the Governor and Mr Rowlands outwardly shocked and embarrassed,” the report writer states. “After making his introductory remarks to the Cabinet group that he had come as an emissary to assist the Government of Bermuda, one Cabinet minister stood and quoted Trinculo’s statement to another emissary in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, ‘Monster, I do smell all horse-piss at which my nose is in great indignation’.

“Later, in explaining that he had come to discuss the constitutional conference on electoral reform and not the constitutional conference on independence, Mr Rowlands reportedly analogised the conferences mentioned in the Pitt Report as a two-part meal; the early constitutional conference to address bread and butter issues and secondly the eventual substantive constitutional conference on independence.

“A Cabinet minister reportedly interjected, “yes, but you are here to serve the dessert before the hors d’oeuvres’.”