Recent Caricom Heads of Government meetings have recorded concern about one or another aspect of the relationship between the UK and its overseas territories. The July 4 to 6 meeting in St Lucia was no exception. There, the combative Chief Minister of Anguilla, Hubert Hughes, obtained the agreement of Caricom heads to send a delegation of foreign ministers to the island to report on his difficult working relationship with the UK appointed governor.
At prior meetings other issues relating to the UK Overseas Territories have also surfaced. The most significant of these has been Caricom’s concern about the UK’s 2009 decision to impose direct rule in the Turks and Caicos Islands (now due to hold elections on November 9). This constitutional suspension arose out of serious allegations of corruption and more recently charges being brought against the former Premier, former ministers, opposition figures, local lawyers, officials and foreign investors.
At the heart of some of the independent Caribbean‘s criticism of the way in which the British Dependent Territories are governed seems to lie a more general uncertainty about the nature of
