A BARBADOS Labour Party (BLP) member has reportedly called for the removal of four MPs from the party, saying that they were not supporting leader Mia Mottley.
The SUNDAY SUN was reliably informed that the call was made at a planning meeting held by the BLP on Friday at Woodlands, St George.
However, when the SUNDAY SUN caught up with Mottley yesterday at Bush Hall, St Michael, where she was holding a party for her constituents, she denied vehemently that any such discussion took place at the meeting.
“Like any good organisation, the Barbados Labour Party met yesterday [Friday] to plan out the first six months of this year,” she said. “That is all that it was – a planning session that included a wide range of people from across the party. That is absolute nonsense. It did not happen.”
Asked about the attendance, she said: “Everyone who was in the island who was invited, attended.”
The Sunday Sun understands that parliamentary representative for St Andrew, George Payne and St James Central representative, Kerrie Symmonds, who is out of the country on his honeymoon after getting married two weeks ago, were the only two absentees.
Mottley charged that the focus should not be on the BLP.
“The Nation should try to find out when the NCC workers will have their matter heard before the Employment Rights Tribunal. This country is being governed by the politics of destruction. For four weeks the question was, would there be a Budget or a ministerial statement?
“For the last two weeks it was, would there be a reshuffle or not, and all the while these issues are being focused on, Barbadians are suffering and companies which they own or the jobs which they have are all at risk and I am not going to agree to include the Labour Party in all that speculative politics of distraction.”
She added: “It is absolute arrant nonsense and those who may wish to spread those rumours, people need to ask what are their motivations . . . . When you are focusing on the politics of distraction you can’t be focusing on the resolutions of the country’s problems.”
The SUNDAY SUN also contacted the member who is said to have called for his colleagues to be removed but he was even more tight-lipped than Mottley.
“I can’t say a word about that,” he said. “I’m not saying anything about the meeting. I went to a meeting which was supposed to be absolutely confidential. I have my views already about people who go to meetings and get involved in heated discussions and then want to put people in court and all of those things. . . .”
It is understood that the matter has been placed on the agenda for discussion and voting at a BLP parliamentary council meeting planned for Tuesday.
