British MP Andrew Rosindell
Member of the UK Parliament Andrew Rosindell has issued a statement that has found support in the Turks and Caicos Islands and other British overseas territories. According to Rosindell, the Overseas Territories (OTs) ought to have elected representation in the UK Parliament.
“We give our 21 Overseas Territories nothing,” the British MP said. “All they have is an informal all party group of which I am proud to be chairman.”
Rosindell is chairman of the Turks and Caicos All Party Group, which consists of members of the three British political parties who have concern for the remaining British OTs and the relationship between these small territories and Britain.
Since Britain’s Conservative Party took office in May 2010 as part of the coalition government, Overseas Territories Minister Henry Bellingham and Rosindell, who sources say work closely together, have both promised a new, more supportive relationship between Britain and its remaining dependencies.
In the Rosindell statement, the outspoken MP also said, “We have a democratic hole, with hundreds of thousands of people for whom we make laws, ultimately govern and on whose behalf we can declare war, make foreign policy and sign international treaties. We have substantial control over their domestic affairs… those territories that have sterling are bound by much of our own economic policy… Although the Crown dependencies and the Overseas Territories are not part of the UK they are substantially influenced and ultimately governed by this (UK) parliament, so it is wrong for them to have no voice at all.”
Rosindell’s chief concern, the Turks and Caicos Islands, which employs the US dollar as its currency, is experiencing serious financial setbacks as a result of an allegedly corrupt elected government, whose former ministers are to begin facing corruption charges at trials set to begin in February.
This TCI government was led by the Progressive National Party (PNP) and its now disgraced premier Michael Misick. During the later Misick years, a revised 2006 constitution gave his government greater autonomy, which was allegedly used to strip the islands of hundreds of millions of dollars through corrupt land dealings, while three British governors – all appointees all of the former Labour government-run Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) — were present and responsible for approving all land sales over 5 acres in size. One controversial transaction on the island of Middle Caicos represented the sale of 2,500 acres of prime development land for 5 percent of its estimated value and seemingly approved by British Governor Richard Tauwhare.
