While not wildly popular, the Progressive Labour Party's call for a boycott of the Independence referendum does not appear to have prompted a challenge to the party's leadership.

The lack of fervour over whether PLP supporters should take part in the referendum appears related to a lack of excitement about the Independence issue generally.

"The push for Independence did not really arise from the masses,'' said PLP supporter and newspaper columnist Mr. Alvin Williams, who has come closest to calling for Opposition Leader Mr. Frederick Wade to resign over the boycott call.

"I'm just saying that if they do want to mess this issue up, maybe they should consider resigning,'' Mr. Williams said of Mr. Wade and other party leaders.

"I don't know if there is any dissent in the caucus, but I'm sure there are probably some second thoughts,'' he said.

PLP Sen. Terry Lister, who withdrew a challenge to Mr. Wade for the party leadership in October, is on the committee promoting the referendum boycott and supports the party position.

In an April 7 column in the Bermuda Times, Mr. Williams was critical of Mr.

Wade for saying the voting compromise that Government reached with United Bermuda Party dissenters had killed any chance of a "yes'' vote in the referendum.

To assure support from UBP backbenchers like the Hon. Ann Cartwright DeCouto and Mr. Trevor Moniz, Government agreed to require that 40 percent of all eligible voters cast "yes'' ballots before a mandate to negotiate Independence would exist.

However, the power the two MPs wielded came "directly from the PLP successfully voting against earlier Government bills with the support of these two politicians,'' Mr. Williams said.

The UBP backbenchers "have ridden on the backs of the Opposition's stance on this issue and they intend to ride all the way to defeat the idea of Bermudian Independence.'' Mr. Williams said "the gauntlet has been thrown to the ground,'' and "a political guillotine awaits those who would place political expediency above the true interest of the people.'' PLP candidate and lawyer Mr. Philip Perinchief has also publicly criticised the party's stand, and the PLP is at odds with the Committee for the Independence of Bermuda.

But aside from calls to radio phone-in programmes, public reaction has been otherwise muted.

Mr. Williams said he saw little hope that the PLP would change its position prior to the referendum.

"I think Mr. Wade has committed himself completely,'' he said. "Unless there is some significant groundswell among PLP supporters, I don't foresee him changing his mind.'' No PLP leadership challenge From Page 1 Mr. Alex Scott MP, who is chairing the PLP's referendum campaign committee which held its first meeting last night, said it was "hard to say'' how unpopular the boycott call was at the outset among the party's rank and file.

But whenever the party's position was fully explained, members "fully ascribed to the decision to abstain,'' Mr. Scott said.

The committee had to convince supporters that the most important issue was not whether Bermuda went independent, but how, he said.

Lawyer and former PLP MP Mr. Julian Hall called on Premier the Hon. Sir John Swan to "reach out'' to the PLP and find a compromise.

"I don't see how any country should be expected to vote `yes' for Independence under a scheme led by a person who only a few months ago called for a review of the presumption of innocence,'' Mr. Hall said.

The PLP wanted Independence de cided by a general election, and the UBP by a referendum, he said.

"There has got to be some kind of middle ground,'' he said. "I don't know that the PLP has ever said that under no circumstances whatsoever would we support a referendum.'' The PLP's "valid concern'' was that the Premier would treat a "yes'' vote in the referendum "as a mandate to effectively convert Bermuda into an Independent country under constitutional guidelines that are foreign to us,'' Mr. Hall said.