Political power is not enough, lawyer Eugene Johnston told the Progressive Labour Party on Sunday. In a keynote address at the party’s Founders Day luncheon, Mr Johnston warned the party hierarchy that its base “cannot be satisfied with something as cheap as political power”.The PLP has a responsibility to change the structure of society to one that is more just, he argued.“The 14 years in power showed us, I think quite clearly, that it’s not simply enough for a people or a country to have political power if it’s not backed up by real economic, social and cultural power,” Mr Johnston told an audience of more than 200 at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess.“So the responsibility of our political leaders are to be servants of those who are looking to recover what was lost. The cultural foundations have to be recovered, and if a politician or anybody for that matter who calls themselves a leader is standing in the way of that identity, that culture, they are leading for the wrong group of people.“If there is anything else that comes from the 14 years in power it’s that a people who this party was formed to serve — cannot be satisfied with something as cheap as political power.“They want something more. They aren’t beholden to someone who calls themselves a politician. Or someone who says it’s in our best interest to remain in power but they cannot put down a marker as to why that is the case.“They will abandon this party and any party that’s formed so long as it doesn’t provide the message and the vision which will ultimately satisfy them.”He reminded his audience that the party was part of a “broader movement” and that it should evaluate whether the party can “serve the purposes of the broader movement.“You could easily be distracted into thinking that the people depend on the party, when in fact the party depends on the people.”The movement’s objectives were to “cure that imbalance that was created hundreds of years before,” Mr Johnston said.“Your history says that you were in the current structure destined to be someone else’s servant.“Your labour was to be used to make others wealthy. And they will use that wealth to lord over you.“That is the structure of things. That’s what we were bequeathed by others. It is necessary to understand that the movement was designed to break down that imbalance. If the structure is where the imbalance lies, the movement requires the removal of the structure or the amendment or reconfiguration of the structure.”Mr Johnston noted that many challenges had been overcome. “If your ultimate ambition was to go to a school where others could go, we’ve achieved that. If your ambition was to get in the House of Parliament well, we’ve achieved that and done a damn good job at it.“If your ambition was to be able to tell the world you come from an affluent country, well we’ve achieved that too.”But he said that the “vast majority” of people in Bermuda were still not satisfied.“This idea, this structure where someone is supposed to be elite over the majority — where the vast majority serves the needs of the minimal few, of any colour — is a dead end.“And the people in this room are living symbols of that dead end. We came to this part of the world to prop up such a system. And it’s not our goal or our mandate to maintain it. It’s our goal and our mandate to break the back of it so the vast majority can benefit from their fruits and their labours.”Mr Johnston suggested that the PLP had lost sight of its goals. “A wonderful moment like 1998 becomes a turning point where the people you are put in place to serve start to see there’s a storm brewing in the horizon, there’s something wrong with this leadership that does without asking, or doesn’t pay sufficient homage to that humanity I talked about.“And when that happens, then December 17 happens. And people with cheap political theories like ‘there’s a recession’ walk into power because the people aren’t sufficiently motivated to go to the polls.“That’s not their fault, it’s our fault for not having the vision enough to see what was going on long before it happened.“And I don’t mean one election. This trend started very soon after 1998.”