THE FAILURE of the government’s move in Parliament on December 9 to promulgate legislation giving Tobago greater autonomy is, ironically, a vivid argument for why that autonomy is needed in the first place.
Law-making power is at the heart of the issue. That Tobago depends on Trinidad to spell out its statutes is what advocates for self-government in the smaller island have a problem with.
In theory, the Parliament is an organ of the entire country.
But in practice, the sense of control Tobagonians need, and deserve, is lost in the equation.
The developments this week confirm that the makeup of our legislative system is ill-suited to, if not inconsistent with, advancement of the Tobago autonomy agenda.
The system is such that it places incredible hurdles in front of meaningful reform.
This is illustrated in the way the government was able to pass the administrative, financial and operational measures contained in the Tobago Island Government Bill 2021 with a simple majority, while it faltered when it came to constitutional amendments that would have undergirded those changes. Those bolder amendments required a special majority.
However, such majorities are rare in our Westminster-inherited legislature, given our highly polarised and polarising politics, locked in as it is along ethnic lines.
Subjecting an issue as sensitive as autonomy to the acid test of a legislative system that gets little done even at the best of times is a failing that few governments have managed to avoid.
It has never been enough just to table laws, send them to committees and then hope for the full support of MPs.
To effect change on this issue requires a fixed timeline of implementation.
It demands, too, a commitment, whether in policy or law, to a regular review of the Tobago House of Assembly Act with binding reporting requirements, as well as stipulations for implementation.
A plebiscite on the island of Tobago could also be a precursor to any draft framework.
For the last decade, both the government and the opposition have missed an opportunity to do more than simply trust in a process that culminated in Monday’s anti-climactic pageantry.
The politicians in Tobago, too, have also not made clear enough the options they wish to see implemented – though their hands are tied by what goes on in the Red House.
All have squandered a chance to reverse a key feature of this country’s colonial legacy. For it is the ghost of British imperial rule, which saw Westminster perfunctorily order the consolidation of two very different territories in 1888, that hovers over the current disappointments.
Those disappointments tell the story of a country unable to move beyond a status quo that is increasingly at odds with the requirements of freedom in both islands.
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