Ben Smith, who was sworn in last week as Leader of the Opposition after a rift in the One Bermuda Alliance over the removal of Robert King, struck a conciliatory tone at the weekend, saying the OBA had to avoid “attack mode” in its parliamentary conduct.

In a two-hour interview with broadcaster David Sullivan, Mr Smith, accompanied by deputy leader and Shadow Minister of Legal Affairs Scott Pearman, acknowledged that “the process we went through this week was not an easy process”.

It followed a swift ousting of Mr King that roiled the Opposition, with outcry from members who supported Mr King in September for his election as leader of the party.

A vote at an OBA caucus meeting on Friday night sealed Mr Smith as party leader, when members approved him for the job 24 to nine, effectively consigning Mr King to the back bench.

“You’re trying to do something that is uncomfortable,” Mr Smith said. “When we did that process, starting on Wednesday, it was not something taken lightly.”

By contrast, Mr King told The Royal Gazette last week that a sudden turn of events, in which a group of seven of his fellow MPs presented Andrew Murdoch, the Governor, with a declaration of no confidence in their leader, had stunned him and left supporters feeling “betrayed”.

Yesterday, Mr Smith, who was the unsuccessful contender for the party’s leadership six months ago against Mr King, avoided mentioning the former leader, saying that “this is not about me and Robert King — this is about our team”, emphasising that the community had expressed it was “tired of that negative behaviour”.

However he said that “over the last several months”, he had “multiple members” of the party and its caucus tell him that the OBA “cannot continue in this direction”.

He said the party had to break from “I am a hammer, you’re a nail”, adding: “My position is to be a unifier.”

Without mentioning names, Mr Smith told the broadcaster that “if the behaviour of our leadership is bad, in attacking at all times, how do we expect our young people to not be fighting each other?”

He called for “healing” and “doing politics in a different way”.

When the former leader spoke to the Gazette on Friday, Mr King was asked if he had taken the helm with the aim of bringing a more hardball approach against the governing Progressive Labour Party than that of Jarion Richardson, his predecessor.

Mr King was reminded of his combative maiden speech in the House of Assembly in June 2024 after winning the Smith’s North by-election, in which Mr King charged that he had been “threatened to a fight” by a government MP that day.

After Neville Tyrrell, a government backbencher, responded to his remarks, the debate was cut off by Dennis Lister, the Speaker of the House, who warned the new MP to “learn your place before you jump to your feet”.

Last week, Mr King denied that he had come in as leader with the explicit aim of taking on the PLP.

“For clarification, my approach is about accountability — being assertive, not aggressive,” he said.

His replacement yesterday repeatedly invoked a need for collaboration and bipartisanship.

Mr Smith said: “What I am actually looking for is the confidence from the country. In order to do that, it’s about doing what we are doing today — having the conversation about what we’re trying to do, in doing politics in a different way and trying to be more collaborative, and trying to understanding that we can have differences.”

He added: “So many times, it’s really that the PLP wants to get to the exact same destination as us, but we’re trying to take two different roads.”

Mr Smith said that when the two parties happened to be in accord, “you should probably be in the same car — that way, we’re actually having a conversation while it’s being driven”.

“That’s the direction that I think is in the best interest of our country.”

While supporters of Mr King said his removal had split the party, Mr Smith said that “what’s happened over this last week is really just opening a door that is going to allow us to have everybody in our team start to function better”.

Mr Pearman also appealed for the two parties to work in tandem and move on from “fighting fire with fire”.

“Bermuda doesn’t need fire right now,” he said.