TREVOR PHILLIPS’ article for The Times ‘Barbados may not be a dream ticket after all’ dated July 13 takes issue with Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley, offering year-long visas to those who have jobs that are ‘location independent’ and can therefore work anywhere in the world.

He rightly highlights that in 2019, 2.4 million visitors spent £872 million in Barbados, which is 40 per cent of the island’s GDP. He also correctly implies that with just 98 Covid-19 cases and seven deaths, Barbados has better managed the Covid-19 pandemic than the USA and UK so these countries citizens can work remotely from Barbados and “the only second wave (they) need to worry about is the one that comes with a surfboard.”

Trevor Phillips incoherently concludes that the reason for Prime Minister Mottley’s offer is “to upend orthodox thinking about… immigration.”

There are so many inaccuracies and insults in Phillips’ article.

True reason

Phillips is so obsessed with “immigration” and “multi-culturalism” he sees it everywhere even when the true reason, to quote Bill Clinton’s election strategist “It’s the economy, stupid.”

The Caribbean region is among the most exposed in the world to the sudden halt in global tourism due to Covid-19. Standard & Poor (S&P) estimates that tourism in the Caribbean may decline by as much as 70% compared with 2019.

This means that tourist-dependent economies need to create thousands of jobs for unemployed tourism-sector workers and unlike the EU, UK or US, governments in the Caribbean cannot afford to offer wage subsidy through furlough schemes. 

Tourism money is therefore very important for maintaining jobs and pumping cash from major currencies into the economy.

Currency

Without tourists paying with these major currencies for goods and services, tourism-dependent countries, like Barbados, risk running out of foreign currency, which they need for the importation of food, fuel and for servicing debt obligations.

Given this context, it is clear that Barbados is looking at minimizing the risk to its tourism revenue, which (Phillips rightly quotes) is “40 per cent of the island’s GDP.” 

There are so many inaccuracies and insults in Phillips’ article.

However I think it is important to address his outdated statement: “The woke generation would also be disappointed that across the Caribbean social attitudes are distinctly conservative and every English-speaking Caribbean nation outlaws homosexuality.”

This is an important fundamental human rights issue.  In his attempt to be relevant notice how Phillips uses the word ‘woke’, not in its origin meaning “those aware of issues concerning social justice and racial justice” but in the context used by the Far Right who hijack the word to demean those who aspire to such values.

Given that Phillips is a former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, this is really deplorable. 

However, the statement that “every English-speaking Caribbean nation outlaws homosexuality” is incorrect. 

Ruled

In August 2016 and April 2018, the law courts of Belize and Trinidad and Tobago respectively ruled that laws criminalising homosexuality are unconstitutional.

The statement that “every English-speaking Caribbean nation outlaws homosexuality” is incorrect. 

Because the English-speaking Caribbean nations are all members of CARICOM they share an identical jurisprudence, which means that they should have all ban these laws. 

However, Barbados’ constitution, like other former colonies, contains a “savings clause” protecting laws inherited by the former British Empire from constitutional review, even if these run counter to fundamental human rights, making any legal challenge difficult. 

This is an example of the ‘colonial hangover’ raised by the Black Lives Matter movement.

While important to ban these laws, these aren’t enforced and a 2016 poll conducted by Caribbean Development Research Services Inc. found that 82% Barbadians opposed discrimination against the LGBT community.

This explains the association of Barbados Gays, Lesbians and All-Sexuals Against Discrimination (founded 2013) and the first Gay Pride Parade (2018). 

Number

Phillips mentioned the low number of Covid-19 deaths in Barbados, which extends to the 20 Caribbean nations with an estimated population of 43m.

They have recorded 84 deaths (source BBC World) compared to just below 45,000 in the UK with a population of 67m.  And British people of Caribbean heritage are over-represented in these UK deaths. 

Instead of highlighting these positives, Phillips reaches back to the 1650s when Oliver Cromwell sent Irish men and women as indentured servants to the Caribbean to critique the region on the fact that many of their descendants are in poverty and decline due to inbreeding.

This is another colonial hangover. He then compounds it with outdated stereotypes about specific islands and negative quotes about Barbados from Trollope (1850s) and Patrick Leigh Fermer (1940s).

Given Phillips’ knowledge of the Caribbean and its diaspora many would expect him to do better, but over the years he has used increasingly outrageous language to seek attention and appear relevant even at the expense of black and brown British people. 

Minority

So much so that when the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Phillips’ involvement into an enquiry into the over-representation of minority ethnic people in the UK’s Covid-19 deaths, there was such a backlash from this community that he ended up playing no role in the review.

Despite his increasing irrelevance, Phillips persists with his “right to offend” so I can only conclude that, as they say in the Caribbean, he is clearly “doltish” and out-of-date.