The aftershocks of last week’s massive political earthquake in Bermuda are going to continue to be felt, and studied, for months to come.

With a resurgent Progressive Labour Party easily winning constituencies, which had previously been considered marginal, as well as picking off some of the safest seats in the One Bermuda Alliance column, it can be said without fear of contradiction that our political landscape was transformed in ways few had expected would happen on July 18.

Now many political observers and pundits are seeking to identify the underlying causes for an upheaval which resulted in the PLP winning almost 60 per cent of the popular vote and fully two thirds of the island’s 36 parliamentary seats.

And a number of commentators are already concluding the OBA signed what amounted to an early draft of its own political death warrant with the 2016 Pathways to Status initiative.

Certainly that misbegotten effort to reform and rationalise Bermuda’s increasingly decrepit immigration framework had a polarising and hugely destabilising impact on day-to-day politics. And its long-term impact on both the credibility and electability of the OBA probably cannot be overestimated.

Historically, immigration and the issuing of grants of Bermuda status, in particular, have been among the most contentious issues on the island’s political agenda.

As a result, these matters have traditionally been approached in a cautious, conservative manner, even by previous administrations that enjoyed healthier parliamentary majorities than the OBA did — and which held office in far palmier economic times.

The OBA leadership was better placed than anyone to appreciate the likely consequences of launching a comprehensive immigration overhaul in the existing economic and social climate without adequate public discussion or consultation.

After all, the OBA had already experienced public backlashes in the form of numerous street demonstrations against far less controversial policy matters.

The governing party had also been repeatedly criticised, even by its own supporters, for perceived high-handedness and a certain cavalier manner when it came to reading and responding to the public mood.

But Pathways To Status was introduced without so much as a whisper of forewarning or even the most cursory attempts to confer with the Opposition.

Even the most casual political observers might have anticipated that such a measure, introduced in such a peremptory way, would serve only to fuel smouldering discontent and tensions in the community. At a time of continuing economic uncertainty, rank-and-file Bermudians were naturally going to be more inward-looking and defensive when it came to immigration — not so much xenophobic as entirely more focused on their own futures and those of their children than those of more recent arrivals.

But the OBA leadership nevertheless rolled out the initiative in what will likely rank as one of the most monumentally self-deceiving and self-destructive decisions in modern Bermudian political history.

Clearly the party grandees assessed the situation only in terms of their preconceived fixed notions while rejecting any and all contrary signs and advice — and there was certainly no shortage of the latter.

The reality is that at the best of times, Pathways to Status would not have been an easy sell to the public. And the spring of 2016, when proposed changes to the Bermuda Immigration & Protection Act were unveiled, was far from the best of times for many in Bermuda.

Too many Bermudians were still contending with the stubborn and lingering effects of both a worldwide Great Recession and unsustainable borrow-and-spend policies of the last PLP government; too many Bermudians continued to be either unemployed or underemployed while the fear of pending job losses hung over any number of local workplaces like so many grey clouds; and, finally, too many Bermudians were scrambling to reconcile stagnant, or shrinking, incomes with an ever-rising cost of living.

Then factor in the reality that Pathways to Status was such a jumble of both necessary and long-overdue reforms as well as provisions that could be — and in the event were — painted as opportunistic and politically motivated OBA add-ons by the PLP.

It certainly did not help make the case for the amendments that they were unveiled in the immediate aftermath of an OBA by-election drubbing in Devonshire North Central.

Although the timing was doubtlessly coincidental, the PLP seized the opportunity to depict the unheralded scheme as being, among other things, an attempt to pack the voter rolls with OBA supporters in the run-up to the next election.

The idea that the OBA, which would have to go to the polls in a little more than a year, would choose that particular moment to abruptly shift focus from a slow but steady programme of economic growth and job creation to what was sure to become an all-consuming political battle to push through previously unannounced and unexpected immigration reforms almost beggars belief.

What is not the least bit surprising, however, is that Pathways to Status collapsed like a sandcastle in a hurricane within only a few weeks of being tabled in the House of Assembly, obliterated by wholesale public disaffection.

Did the PLP and its allies vigorously exploit and focus voter anger over Pathways to Status? Undoubtedly. Did the then Opposition party create that anger? No, the OBA leadership must bear sole responsibility for that.

At a time of sluggish economic recovery and political instability, it would seem obvious Bermuda’s leadership needed to demonstrate delicacy, care and forethought to maintain equilibrium and avoid any further crises of public confidence during the run-up to the next election.

However, the OBA demonstrated none of these qualities when it came to Pathways to Status. The initiative was a calamitous miscalculation, which opened up a significant new fault line in Bermuda politics — one that almost certainly helped to deliver last week’s terrain-upending political earthquake.