Racist bomb attacks in Britain were highlighted by lawyer Phil Perinchief at a public debate on the issue of citizenship or independence for Bermuda.

He emphasised recent bombings in London which appear to have been racially motivated as he spelt out what he believed Bermudians would gain from accepting a British passport.

Speaking at a public meeting at St. George's, he questioned what benefits people would get from working, studying or travelling to the United Kingdom or Europe.

"What real experience are we getting by residing there?'' he said. "There are some very real experiences we can get in Bermuda, for example, in reinsurance law Bermuda maybe setting precedents.

"We could possibly give up our birthright.

"I don't know how many of you propose to study French, Dutch or German, you would probably need those languages to compete for jobs with nationals from those countries,'' he added.

But businessman Christopher "Kit'' Astwood argued that Bermudians could only gain from the White Paper on Overseas Territories and had nothing to fear in the way of new laws.

"Take the passport on offer, it opens up travel, work and education -- 15 new countries become available to us and our people,'' he said.

"It will help young Bermudians tremendously. We are living on a low tax Island, and now we have 16 different roads to travel. To train abroad, get experience abroad and bring that experience back to Bermuda.

White Paper under fire "We need to broaden our horizons. I don't think we should be putting up barriers against the rest of the world -- we should join the rest of the world and compete.'' Walton Brown, of the committee for the independence of Bermuda, warned that any agreement on reciprocity could be affected by a case before the European Court, where a Frenchman is arguing that he should have the right to reside in one of the nation's dependent territories.

He said both Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands were for independence, and added that he perceived the White Paper had been put in such language, so it was confrontational and provoked discussion of independence.

But the UK Government was using the paper as a basis for arguing that the territories had already decided they wanted to remain part of the UK, he said.