Governor: "Absolutely No Chance" Of The Cayman Islands Coming Under Some Administration Arrangement From The UK Following Recent Ministers’ Resignations

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By Alric Lindsay

Responding to a question posed by talk show host Orrett Connor on the For The Record show this week concerning the public’s perception that the recent resignations of MP André Ebanks, MP Sabrina Turner, and MP Katherine Ebanks-Wilks may lead the United Kingdom to intervene with the Cayman Islands Government’s affairs, Her Excellency The Governor Jane Owen confirmed that no such thing would happen. This is because she was satisfied that the Cayman Islands’ constitution contained provisions that contemplated these types of events.

Explaining this, the Governor said:

I think at the moment there’s absolutely no chance, no chance of any kind of, you know, coming under some administration arrangement from the UK.

She added:

My approach has always been that, you know, we follow the constitution, we follow the rule of law.

I was very keen to look after the resignations last week.

The question is, do we have a government that can continue, as Premier says, does it have the support of enough members in the legislature, for example? So can democracy continue? And provided that is the case, then there is absolutely no question of me intervening in any other sort of a way.

Additionally, she implied that keeping the Government intact at this time was important to enable a Cayman delegation to have a representative at the Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council, which will be held in London from November 26 to 27.

She continued:

This is the event that’s held every year with all of the overseas territories. It will be the first one for our new ministers in the UK after the British election in the summer.

So, Honourable Premier has already spoken to Foreign Secretary David Lammy. I hope he will be there. Maybe the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Overseas Territories, who’s called Stephen Doughty, will be the main minister who’s leading it.

She explained further:

The UK is looking at having a proactive future relationship with the territories.

That may mean some opportunities to renegotiate various bits and pieces. So I think it’s incredibly important that Premier is there with the Cayman delegation to hear what Ministers have got to say and to be able to have a really open and honest discussion about all of that.

David Lammy, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs

Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly, who will attend the Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council in two weeks, doubled down on the Governor’s confirmation of non-intervention. In particular, the Premier noted that she was in touch with Stephen Doughty, Minister of State for Europe, North America and Overseas Territories in the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. On air, she read out MP Doughty’s email correspondence expressing his concerns about the hurricane and giving her confidence that she could reach out to him if there was anything he or his team could do for her to “assess the situation.” The significance of relaying this, of course, was to demonstrate that if the UK had any concerns, MP Doughty would have raised them with the Premier or via the Governor’s office.

With no UK intervention in sight, the Cayman Islands Cabinet and Parliament will continue business as usual.