Last evening, shortly after 10 p.m., MP Curtis Dickinson sent a detailed communique via email to all Parliamentary members of the Progressive Labour Party, including the party’s elected Members of Parliament.
For reasons that remain unclear, that email has since been leaked and is now circulating widely on social media. In the communication, Dickinson addresses the ongoing dispute within the PLP over its membership process, the legal action that followed, and what he describes as a series of events leading up to the court proceedings.
TNN News has obtained a copy of that email, and here is what Curtis Dickinson is telling his fellow PLP members.
Dear Colleagues,
In his recent message to the PLP family the Party Leader set out two important dates: August 24th when the new motions were passed and September 4th when we obtained the Injunction.
To ensure the record is honest and complete there are three other dates preceding the court action that are relevant. On August 28th I wrote to the Party Leader, Party Chairman and General Secretary including a detailed 13-page Legal Opinion that we encouraged him to share with the Party Executive.
It set out in detail why the process proposed to and passed by Central Committee was contrary to our Constitution and how a Court would likely respond. We exchanged messages on August 31st agreeing that an internal process to resolve the issue would be preferred by us both. To my surprise, on September 3rd, the Party sent out the revised membership intake process based on the August 24th motions, completely ignoring the advice we had sent the week before demonstrating that it was unconstitutional, and without any further contact with us to resolve things internally.
The following day we obtained the Injunction. To date that Legal Opinion has not been shared with Central Committee. I think that was a grave error because Central Committee could have used it to properly guide themselves on the legal risk they were taking, including the risk of legal costs to the Party. We are sharing it now so that Members of Parliament can form their own independent view.
The dispute between us has had many characterizations. Firstly, it was said to be a Takeover or a Trojan Horse. Next, it was said to be hundreds of non-Bermudians. Then it was an OBA Takeover. The Party Leader in his interview with Gary Foster Skelton said it differently. He said there were likely no more than 10 people who were questionable and that it might be only one. He asked why anyone would engage in expensive legal action over one person. I ask the same question. Does anyone believe that the Party machine has been employed in response to one person? I do not.
Instead, again using the Party Leader’s interview, he suggested as an example 4,000 PLP members.
We believe that range to be true. We’ve signed up over 1,800 members and the Party had roughly that amount before Hayward and Dickinson Campaigns began signing up new members. Over the course of four months, we hosted a number of events where we openly encouraged Bermudians to join the Party to have their voices heard. We hosted a Men’s Event and a Women’s Event. We had three Fireside Chats, a Healthcare forum and an Education forum. We had Branch meetings in the East, Central and the West. We canvassed directly in neighborhoods and we called upon long standing PLP supporters who had never before joined the Party.
There are supporters of mine who signed up to the Party directly and those who signed up in support of Minister Hayward, both of which we wouldn’t have a count for. The Party Leader has direct access to that data so he would know best. What that means is that the Party has more than doubled during this Campaign. That should be good news to us all as it demonstrates our ability as a Party to appeal to the wider public. It also shows the satisfaction the public has had with both Minister Hayward’s and my Campaigns which have shown energy and enthusiasm from their respective supporters and been overwhelmingly positive.
That all changed on August 24th and after our list of new members had been submitted. First came the New Rules, four months into the competition and introduced at a Central Committee meeting while I was at a pre-announced public campaign event – without any notice to me. Then came the decision to hold back the Legal Opinion from Central Committee. Now attack ads are appearing. An attack ad suggesting I am anti-women. An attack ad accusing Wayne Furbert of the same. A further attack ad suggesting that the legal action is targeting women PLP leaders. The latest one includes my personal cell phone number and encouraging people to call me and complain. The information in that last Ad is only known to a few people so it strongly suggests where it is coming from.
The constant theme: All anonymous. All negative. All untrue. Next has come attempts to affect the number of new members. The Court ordered the names of all new members to be submitted. The first list from the Party had 1,476 names on it and they admitted it was not yet complete. The second list – issued because the Court ordered again that all names be submitted – had even fewer names: 1,103. 373 names disappeared. Our campaign submitted more than 1,800 new members, while the combined efforts of both leadership campaigns and other new applicants account for more than 2,000 plus new members overall. When we compared the second Party list of 1,103 names against the more than 1,800 names submitted by our campaign, our initial analysis indicated that as many as 1,250 of our submitted names were absent. While I fully accept that the Executive Team are under significant pressure to produce this information, and now after several failed submissions they are under the threat of Court sanction, I believe it is clear what is taking place. Having signed up more members than ever has been done in our Party history, the impact they could have on our election and choice of Leader for the Country is apparent to everyone. Undermining the will of the People is not how our Party should be run and even more clearly not how our Country should be run.
It’s time for the Party Leader to respect the terms of our Constitution and recognize that over 2,000 plus Bermudians have joined the Party after being signed up by both the Hayward and Dickinson campaigns. They are entitled to vote alongside our loyal and longstanding members and are Bermudians who want to see progress in our Party and our Country. That warrants repeating – they are every bit as Bermudian as each of us and if we do not respect them, they will remember. They do not need a special process to be heard and our Constitution doesn’t provide for one. It’s time to welcome them and begin the process of electing a new Party Leader.
We are called to serve the people of Bermuda with honour, integrity and respect for the principles that bind our Party together. I remain deeply committed to the Bermuda Progressive Labour Party and to the ideals upon which our Party was founded. Respecting our Constitution is part of that commitment. Sometimes things have to be challenged in order to be changed. This is one of those moments. It is time to honour our Constitution, respect the voices of our members and move forward together. It is time for change, and change has come.
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