Former United Bermuda Party leader Wayne Furbert will tonight explain to his constituents why he quit the party last year.

The Hamilton West Independent MP is hosting "Straight Talk: the truth sometimes hurts" to speak in the way he said he was never able to while he was in the UBP.

He will also outline why he left the party last December — a move he says has earned him plaudits from Progressive Labour Party supporting constituents, but has led to snubs from some whites across the Island. "First of all this meeting is to talk to the people of Hamilton Parish and everyone in Bermuda that wants to know exactly where I stand right now as an MP," Mr. Furbert told The Royal Gazette yesterday.

"They can ask me anything as far as where I plan to go and I will explain why I left the UBP.

"A lot of times I felt even when I was leader of the United Bermuda Party some of the things I wanted to say were controlled. You had your team around you deciding how things needed to be said."

Mr. Furbert was the first of five MPs to quit the UBP in the past 12 months, saying that the party's failure to reform meant it would never win a General Election again. He said of the feedback from his constituents so far: "I have had some good responses, people saying it's about time, particularly if they are PLP.

"I have some white friends who say: 'I still support you.' There are some whites who don't seem to speak to me anymore. That hurts, man, although very few of them have been in Hamilton Parish. We have got to get over that nonsense."

The meeting takes place at Temperance Hall, 50 yards west of Market Place, Shelly Bay, at 7.30 p.m.

Mr. Furbert will make a speech, followed by a question-and-answer session. He will focus on issues including education, race, crime and conscription.

Early this summer, he sparked a seven-hour House of Assembly debate by putting forward a motion calling for forgiveness for the role politicians had played in race division over the years.

"We have got to find a way to get over it," he said of Bermuda's racial divide yesterday. "As long as we are tearing each other apart, the Country is going to be stagnated."