Britains relationship with VI feels more like confrontation
Junior Minister for Financial Services, Trade and Economic Development, Lorna Smith, has commented that the relationship between the Virgin Islands and the United Kingdom is beginning to feel less like a partnership and more like a confrontation.
Speaking during the debate on the Constitutional Review Report, Smith pointed to ongoing tensions over issues such as beneficial ownership registers, where the UK has pressed Overseas Territories to adopt public access despite local pushback.
Smith said she was disappointed that the spirit of mutual respect and collaboration promised more than two decades ago in Britain’s landmark Partnership for Progress and Prosperity white paper appears to have been forgotten.
She reminded the House that the 1999 white paper was built on four key tenets: the right of self-determination, mutual obligations and responsibilities between the UK and its territories, maximum internal authority, and a firm commitment from the UK to help its territories develop economically and respond to emergencies.
“I have to say that these tenets seem to have been long forgotten. But Madam Speaker, I was there when we spent a whole day at Lancaster House, which is owned by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, discussing how this partnership would apply in practice,” Smith recalled.
She stressed that while the BVI government wants to maintain a collaborative relationship with London, current pressures and directives from the UK often leave the territory feeling sidelined rather than respected.
“These days, it feels a lot more like confrontation and less like a partnership between us and the United Kingdom. And I’m going to say it again. It feels a lot more like confrontation and less like a partnership,” Smith declared.
At the same time, she made clear that the government’s goal is not to clash with the UK but to defend the interests of Virgin Islanders.
Smith’s comments come amid ongoing pressures on the territory’s financial services industry as experts and the government try to stave off UK pressure to publicise the company owners who do business with the jurisdiction.
Copyright 2025 BVI News, Media Expressions Limited. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed.
Time for this lady go sit down and suck mango!
Miss you are one of the reasons we are in this mess. Go sit down.
The woman has a right to her opinion..
The relationship is the same as her relationship with the truth. What happened to our 5 million dollars that was put in Bank of Asia?
FOUR KEY TENETS!!!
1. You won’t call a referendum on self determination. The only hold up there.
2. You responded like molasses to the COI and still do.
3. You use your authority to the maximum to do all the peoples business in SECRET.
4. You refused backing for a $300 Million loan and then took out an expensive $100 Million loan years later to pay for your raises instead of infrastructure.
It is the VI Politicians that are the bad partners. The UK is there to help the PEOPLE of the VI but have met nothing but reseistance since Andrew Fahie and this criminal gang.
Time to go home granny. Thanks but no thanks.
Funny man young he needs to go home too
It is because it is and will always be a hidden confrontation due to inert racism, hate, global colonial economic entitlement and jealousy.
Birds And Marionettes
by Tafari Zharr
You Gave Us Uus Nothing
Manipulations for Freedoms
You’ve Fronted For The Heirs
The Monarch’s Frontier
Is Still A Bird’s Sanctuary
That Abandoned Their Natives
Staving The Sun’s Ancestry
Left To fend Or Quit
They made something of it
You made something of it
We made something of it
Now you want back in
Come Along Again
Viruses And Virgins
Vigils and Vixens
The Taste Of Salty Winds
Against Parched Lips
Kept Souls Licking
The Skill Of Net-Fishing
Grandpa’s Good Catching
Kept Our people smacking
Kept Granny Grinning
Mammie Apples Not Applesauce
Sugar and Johnny Cakes – The Call
A Little Extra Something Tossed
Legends Like Sammie-Cutchie
“Chiropractic-ally” Boss
Purple Mansion and Peebles
No Anticipation Was Ever Tossed
On Those Days When Albums
Never Played
Scratched and Funghi Bands Amazed
VI Has Displayed Its Potentially Great
We Good – We Always Been Good
Good try And Good Luck
Reset classism and Resist The Corrupt
The Train’s Left The Neighborhood
Satisfied To Be Blessed And Blind
The Baroness Got Punchlines
We came in from behind
On the back end
Sand And Sandflies
High Fives, Cries and Lullabies
Take A Bow Hold Your Breath
A Field For Field Hands
A Stadium For Formation
Driven For The Arisen
The Latent Spirit- Come Lately
Front seats on the Front line
With yours On the Front end
“Perfidy In Front Ah We” Captain
Together We Sink or We Swim
Gimme The Cold Pot To Rougen
The Toughen “Old Wife Skin”
Fat-hogs Bay Reigns Adaptation
Why What Happened And When
Ocean Stories Came And Went
Families Wept Without Collapsing
Stop Gaslighting By Oppression
Message To The Seated And Opposition
Buyer Beware: Secure Policies
Or Become Policed Appeased Devotees
Stash Your Cane Rum and guava berries
Sobering If You Muster
Coconut Water And Gin
Complaining Ain’t Winning
Buckets Hitting Floor of Cisterns
Scratching Heads And Asses
Dispite Rainy seasons
Never again
The Resolution Was Dubbed
The Bird Sanctuary Decision
So Who Never Knew
That VI Flew without A runway
American Cary’s Blueprinted Our Blue
God Gave Us water
Wee walked on it
You Withhold crown lands
We Built Homes On Hills
With Impossible Sounds
Greedy Bastards Dredged Up A Town
To Us The BVI Belongs
For our dignity Noel Was Crowned
Goddesses: Imogene and Eileen
Our First Ladies In Between
We’ve Been Between A Rock
Hard-place and Hardships Shaped By Little Or Barefoot Hardwares
We’ve Rocked The US Dollar
Doing The Do – In Deeds And Dept
To The Dance Of The British Pounding
So heres a song to VI Strong
Why do you want to Ruin
And Run your bitch down
Last time I checked
The indigenous Men Lost Ground
Here’s To Holding Forts Down
As Our Territory Drowns
It’s A British Virgin Islander Mek It
We still trying to Fake-It
Town Crier First ransacked To Remake it
Ignoring We in this bitch
Goats running
Youth gunning
Politicians yapping
We are the Executors Of Our Demise
Or Protectors of Our Resilience
From East End to West End And Road Town
Your fights not with the neighbors
Caribs, Arawak and Native Americans
The tribes have held you down
Sons of the soul and women of the seas
Don’t mek you get back on our knees
Some hold the code Others Disbelieve
Others wave Their Indulgences
Flip The Bird If You Not Being Heard
The Umpire Holds the Flag Politicians Brag
VI On It’s Knees -Balking – Afraid To Sneeze
Faint Voices Anxious For When Against
Birds And Marionettes
… Won’t Matter
This Poem Is For The Brave
Save Your Raves
For those wooden figures
Who make You Wanna Holler
Ballers Up
Bottles Up
Gigs Up
Good Times Up?
Hold On – Wait A Minute
Seems Like The Throes Of
The Supreme Asinine Bet
We Must Bet On Ourselves
Copyright © 2023. By Tafari Zharr. All rights reserved
Lorna right in the power holding corner, she parroting Andrew and natalio anti UK slogans to keep herself in power because bank of Asia is swinging over Lorna and natalio head.
Suck Mango..lol…or pop guinip,when it’s season..pick coco plum up sage and tie she mouth?
The pundits and politicos chafe under what they perceive as Britain looking over their shoulder. The rest of us see it as keeping them honest.
Instead of whining so much, perhaps… Just perhaps, our politicians could learn to milk the benefits the relationship has to offer. Use our relationship – not dis it.
WHERE’S OUR 5 MILLION DOLLARS?
Partnership? What is she on?