Imagine this. You are the Premier of the Cayman Islands or the British Virgin Islands. You have been trying your hardest to continue to develop your nation’s economy. With British support and encouragement over a long period the nation’s financial services and tourism sectors have flourished. You and your predecessors have been hugely successful in achieving this and have within all relevant laws attracted investment, offshore funds and many tens of thousands of visitors.
Despite the small size of your country, your economy is performing well, you have a global name to protect, and your innately conservative fellow citizens are pleased that successive governments have largely run the country well. Some in other parties may disagree about the detail, but for the most part your country has an upward trajectory, a high per capita income, full employment and a quality of life unmatched in the rest of the region.
It is early on a Saturday morning and you wake up to hear that the news that the leader of the opposition in Britain – the country that, despite continuing differences with ministers and officials there, you feel closest to – has issued a diktat. His remarks, made for domestic political reasons in the run up to a general election, threaten to derail your economy and hand a
