David Burt has accused the Bermuda Government of being “either tone-deaf or stupid” when it tried to “push down the throats of this country” the Pathways to Status Bill.

The acting Opposition leader told The Royal Gazette the proposals that sparked protests outside Parliament this year were “inflammatory” in light of past attempts by the United Bermuda Party to add more whites to the electoral roll.

“It was the most irresponsible action that the country has ever seen from a government,” he said. “It was absolutely 100 per cent irresponsible.

“This is what the United Bermuda Party did in the 1970s and 1980s to consolidate their political power: they gave status grants to persons who they knew would be more favourable to vote for them so they could continue to promulgate their power.

“That’s what happened. This was a naked play to do the exact same thing.”

Mr Burt claimed the Government’s actions threatened the stability of the country, laying much of the blame on Cabinet ministers Trevor Moniz, the Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, and Senator Michael Fahy, the former Minister of Home Affairs.

“They knew there would be absolute howling from the people, but they, I guess, thought that they would be able to endure the howling. They literally went to brinkmanship.”

But the protests ultimately proved positive, the 37-year-old Pembroke West Central MP said, because it gave Bermudians a chance to “stand up for their rights”.

With tears in his eyes, he admitted that speaking to the demonstrators outside Sessions House with his infant daughter in his arms was “very, very emotional”.

He said: “It’s very gratifying for the frontline politician to see the support of the grass roots, to put themselves in the line of fire to support your position.”

His own views on immigration, he revealed, were passionately informed by the “painful situation” that he was in when he returned to the island as a highly educated graduate in his mid-twenties and could not find work.

He applied to 23 companies on the island and received only two responses, resulting in one interview. “It is a difficult thing to know what it’s like looking for employment inside your own country and you cannot find it, and see persons who are not from your country working,” he said.

“That’s the experience that a lot of us young Bermudians have. It’s the same thing that is happening now ... the despair.”

Mr Burt eventually found work as a consultant with the Government and now co-owns an IT and small business consulting firm, which has only ever hired Bermudians.

He believes that more categories of jobs should be closed to non-Bermudians, particularly in the trades, and that the island needs to consider “whether or not our immigration systems are rigorous enough”.

He said: “You can’t emigrate to America to clean floors, so why can you emigrate to Bermuda to clean floors?

“That’s not to say that I want Bermudians cleaning floors. That’s not to say that I want my children, or my constituents’ children, to aspire to a life where the only job they can have is to clean floors and that we shouldn’t allow people into the country who are cleaning floors because that will take jobs away.

“I recognise that there are more jobs in Bermuda than we have Bermudians to fill them and there will always be a need for expatriate workers.”

Mr Burt, the son of a Bermudian father and Jamaican mother, said Bermuda needed a “balanced” immigration policy that did not give “blanket status grants to persons who may not be productive factors in our economy”.

He added: “If you came to Bermuda to be a waiter, you shouldn’t be a waiter for 20 years. You shouldn’t be getting to the place where there is a legitimate expectation that you should remain.

“We need to come up with an immigration policy that is fit for purpose in the 21st century.”

The shadow finance minister said the real key to job success for Bermudians would be diversification of the economy — “more and different industries in Bermuda” — plus a tax system that makes it more attractive for businesses to base more of their workforce here.