NOTWITHSTANDING the extraordinary speech given by former United Bermuda Party leader Pamela Gordon, in which she strongly indicated that she could not support her party's call for a constitutional referendum unless the British gave a clear indication of what the next phase of Bermuda's constitutional evolution will be, the Opposition fought a rearguard action against reform.

Last Friday' debate on the recommendations of the Boundaries Commission to create 36 single-seat constituencies truly was a watershed on Bermuda's political history and electoral reform.

What has been made clear is despite the UBP's stated support for the Progressive Labour Party Government's plan to introduce electoral reform, when it came right down to it, it was one step forward, two steps backwards for the UBP. In the end the UBP was seen to be dragged kicking and screaming into accepting political reform which most agree is long overdue in this country.

To hear some of the speeches made during the debate by the Opposition you would have thought that many MPs were trying to eulogise the old dual-seat system despite it being accepted that such a system was inherently unfair and had not supported the democratic ideal of "one person, one vote, each of equal value".

Take some of the comments of UBP MP Allan Marshall. He stated that in his opinion the old system of dual-seat constituencies worked pretty well for Bermuda. In other words, he was quite comfortable with an electoral system which gave some votes greater value than others.

And this is the crux of the problem in Bermuda. We are unable to except the truth of our history and how many aspects of that history have really been unfair to a great many people in this country and hindered the progressive, forward movement of Bermuda.

As far as the genesis of the current electoral system goes, we will have to accept that it is rooted in Bermuda's racial past when this country's white political establishment was faced with what it considered to be an imminent threat to their power and control, namely the prospect of thousands of newly enfranchised black voters.

There is no doubt that out of the prortacted, progressive march of black Bermudians came the labour movement led by the Bermuda Industrial Union and the political movement led by the PLP. These can be identified as been part of the forces of change. On the other side, we have the forces of conservatism that resisted change and that is where the UBP stood.

When we look at the written record we see that instead of embracing change, the UBP began what I call a long retreat from reform and retaining the dual-seat constituency was a part of that retreat.

It was claimed that the dual-seat format would allow for a black and white politician to run together and this would help bring about racial harmony. But in practice it only served to divide the black vote while the white community never swayed from its unreserved support of the UBP.

Not only that, the infamous expatriate vote - which allowed any citizen of the British Commonwealth the right to vote in Bermuda's elections after being resident in the country for just three years - was championed by the UBP. This too was a state of affairs that the UBP fought to retain even though it could not be right that foreigners should have the right to vote in our elections.

The question should be asked: Why would the former UBP Government have the need to have such a fail-safe mechanism if it really believed that it could win the mandate to govern from the people?

But again we were not prepared to face the truth about our country and its racial divide. But if there was a fear on the part of the white community as to what an undiluted black vote would do, it would seem that their fears were unfounded. For alone out of all the countries that have a black majority, we seem to be the only one that consistently returned a political party with a primarily white political support base as its Government.

Then in 1998 the inexplicable did happen and there was the long-held feared black voters' revolt and the UBP fell from power.

You have to appreciate that those of us who fought in earlier, losing election campaigns for the PLP knew that we would win or lose that campaign in the black community. Given the white community's propensity to give most of its vote to the UBP, it was a waste of time to try to win that vote.

Often if any canvassing was to be done in white areas, it was left to last. You did not need demographics or an election analyst to know where votes went.

Bermuda still has distinctive black and white neighbourhoods and the original designers of Bermuda's electoral boundaries were aware of that fact and drew the Parliamentary constituencies accordingly. But, of course, we are slow to admit the truth of these things.

When Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons accuses the PLP Government of creating anxiety, suspicion and polarisation he should have admitted that it is within the white community that such feelings exist. And it is the fear that the white community will become even more politically marginalised that drove opposition to the introduction of single-seat constituencies and electoral reform. And in that respect we have come full circle.

And this brings me to the comments of former UBP leader Pamela Gordon who, in almost prodigal daughter fashion, has declined to support her party's opposition to these reforms and made the statement "that is up to Britain to reveal where it will take us in the future".

However, I maintain that Britain has gone as far as it can with us. Yes, in the past when Britain was a colonial power she would continue to lead her colonies mostly in her own interests. But now she is no longer a colonial power. She has long since thrown off the burden of empire. Only a remnant of that empire still hopes to cling on to what was but which is no longer here.

Constitutionally, as the former UBP leader has stated, Bermuda has gone as far as it can short of direct rule from London or Independence. So we have to decide where we go from here. In my opinion we can only do that by embracing ourselves as Bermudians. Britain cannot do this for us, for it is something that we must do for ourselves.