THE Barbados Labour Party (BLP) will rise again after overcoming its leadership crisis, said some senior party members yesterday in the wake of the controversial change from Mia Mottley to Owen Arthur.
“This impasse has not broken the spirit of BLP members and whenever the bell is rung, we will be ready to fight the battle as one,” said former Cabinet minister Lionel Craig.
The veteran politician, who served in the Tom Adams administration, acted as Prime Minister on several occasions and replied to the 1973 Budget on behalf of the Opposition in the House of Assembly.
Craig said he hoped the conflict between Mottley and Arthur “does not divide the party down the middle”.
Conceding it has been a very difficult time for the BLP, Craig said there were internal conflicts in the past which were fought quietly, then the party regrouped.
“This impasse will not weaken the Barbados Labour Party . . . . Arthur is the ‘general’ and he has been given the tools, he has now to finish the job.”
George Griffith, a former Consul General to New York, said “the BLP is a mature political institution and will recover sooner rather than later from any harm done to the morale of the party and its members”.
He stressed there was more than enough blame to go around for the conflict which saw five BLP MPs – George Payne, Gline Clarke, Dale Marshall, Ronald Toppin and Arthur – sign a letter last Tuesday summoning Mottley to a meeting to discuss her leadership yesterday. She did not attend the meeting.
The five, a majority of the BLP MPs, later went to Government House for an audience with the Governor General. Arthur is expected to be sworn in today as the new Leader of the Opposition.
Leadership issue
Griffith said the manner in which the matter was handled could have been very different.
“From the outset, and at least one year ago, the leadership issue could have been addressed effectively.
“It must be recognised that Ms Mottley is not an innocent bystander in all that has gone on. I believe that once she was aware that she could no longer guarantee the support of the majority of her parliamentary colleagues she had a duty to step down. Hanging on to office for as long as she did was not in keeping with the best traditions of democracy,” he opined.
Glyne Murray, a former Minister of State in Arthur’s Administration and later High Commissioner to Canada, said the former Prime Minister’s return to the post of Leader of the Opposition would inevitably reshape the dynamics not only of the BLP, but Parliament and the whole system of politics, economics and sociology.
“Observant persons who have been following Mr Arthur’s public pronouncements over the past year or so would have increasingly recognised that he has been using the less hectic pace of being only a Member of Parliament for serious reflection and introspection, and that his way of thinking continues to be as sharp, profound, perceptive and far-seeing as ever.
“Politics in Barbados has now entered a new era with his remarkable comeback, a step that was being called for by a growing number of people across the society,” said Murray.
However, Clyde Griffith, who served in Tom Adams’ Cabinet, termed the action which saw the dumping of Mottley for Arthur as “a dastardly act reeking of a scorched earth policy which I hope will backfire on them”.
Griffith said Mottley had “single-handedly” rekindled the BLP in after its devastating defeat in 2008.
“In her battle against the towering presence of [Prime Minister] David Thompson, she did not have the support of the former Prime Minister and those who sat there cowering from the onslaught of the formidable speakers of the DLP front bench.
“I would go as far to say that the former Prime Minister found himself no match for David Thompson and it took Mia Mottley to carry the fight to the Dems,” Griffith said.
