The Disaffection of Ralph Thorne

By Ralph Jemmott

It is possible to be in two minds about the state of contemporary Barbadian politics. If one is given to cynicism one might be inclined to see it as high comedy, tragicomedy or farce. On the other hand, if one is prone to optimism and trust, one might realise that Barbados is not a failed or failing state, it is not an autocracy and remains at least for now, a viable liberal democracy. The government in fact functions, perhaps not to all our satisfaction.

We all experience our seasons of discontent, but truth be told our country still runs. The roads are being fixed, the water supply is being attended to and few could legitimately claim that the Mottley administration has been asleep at the wheel. With a few reservations, I generally support the present government on both the Cybercrime Bill and the Labour Clauses (Concessions) Bill. Indeed part of the problem may be that the Mottley-led BLP administration is attempting too much too quickly with insufficient in-depth thought and broad-based consultation. Hence the prevalence of what a regular caller to Down to Brass Tacks terms ‘walk-backs’ or reversals of policy. I think that the Prime Minister herself does not give enough in-depth thought to the myriad of ideas that catch her fancy.

Thorne’s decision to leave the BLP and become the opposition leader is a good thing for the Barbadian polity. This goes to the core of a fairly pervasive discontent with the Prime Minister and the BLP administration. Rightly or wrongly that disaffection may relate to the feeling that power and decision-making are too much concentrated in the hands of one person and that in the absence of an official Opposition and the ostensible unwillingness of members of the front bench to offer critique of government policy, there is a trend to autocracy and that as a consequence, democracy could be somewhat at risk sometime in the future. In some parts of our world autocracy is becoming the favoured form of polity. Political theorists in the region such as the late Archie Singham have described what some call ‘the hero and the crowd syndrome’ where the ‘Hero’ leads and the people follow, sometimes meekly.

Those of us who cherish the democratic principle and abhor autocracy in any form, welcome any alternative voice to the Mottley/BLP  monologue. Ralph Thorne’s presence in the House of Assembly and two opposition senators in the Upper House should provide a modicum of an alternative perspective on many of the critical issues that confront this country. Mottley and the BLP cannot be right on everything.  In his maiden speech as opposition leader, Thorne warned about a legislative tendency to place ostensibly excessive punitive power in the hands of ministers of government. In any administration where one person dominates this could mean the concentration of power in the personage of a Prime Minister.

At his swearing-in at State House, Thorne made it clear that he was at variance with some aspects of the BLP’s educational reform proposals. He expressed the view that while he saw a need for some elements of reform, the structural changes proposed by the administration were not needed. Many other reservations have been expressed by other Barbadian publics. I would hope that Ralph Thorne was not the only member of the Barbados Parliament, intelligent and informed enough to have reservations about the current reform proposals. If so why? Are they all afraid to speak up?  Some are saying that they no longer follow the debates in the House of Assembly because they have become monotonous with every member of that once august body singing in sanctimonious harmony from the same hymn sheet. We keep saying that we want our school children to learn to think critically. Do we really?

This may bring into legitimate question the nature of political leadership. Political scientists often identify three types of political leadership. One such is the authoritarian or autocratic leadership of the kind that brooks no challenge and denigrates or even punishes those who do. There are of course varying degrees of authoritarianism. A Lee Kwan Yew is not to be confused with a Vladimir Putin. The former himself once described Singapore as ‘a soft authoritarian state.’ The second aspect is the collegial headship that fully appreciates an honest conversation and exchange of contending points of view. The third is an acquiescent leadership that does not or cannot lead and attempts to accommodate all and sundry uninformed and errant opinions. Britain’s Margaret Thatcher would fall into the category of the non-collegial headship, which she did and ended up in tears when she overstepped her marks and the Cabinet some of whom she described derogatorily as ‘wets,’ let it be known they had had enough of her. One Cabinet member stated that she sometimes spoke to her colleagues in Cabinet in a manner that he would not speak even to his game-keeper.

Geoffrey Howe, in reference to Thatcher’s fall from power, spoke to “the recklessness with which she later defended her own uncompromising views … the insistence on the undivided sovereignty of her own opinion dressed up as the nation’s sovereignty was her undoing” (Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders since 1945, p. 434).

Tom Adams’ leadership can be described as relatively ‘collegial’. This was because he had the ‘great combination’ behind him, people whose abilities he could respect as equal to his own.

Thorne has let it be known that his disaffection is based on principle not on political opportunism. In an age when as Minister Colin Jordan has said recently, trust has been eroded, I take Ralph Thorne at his word. There are too many unprincipled persons in Barbados today scrambling to reach the top of a consuming mediocracy.

In his text, Caribbean Constitutional Reform: Rethinking the West Indian Polity, the late Professor Simeon McIntosh spoke to the virtue of politics and the politics of virtue. Politics can be virtuous if it works to human betterment; that however depends on whether the political actors are themselves virtuous or have some sense of political virtue.

Ralph Jemmott is a retired educator.