Church and union leaders have reacted furiously to the refusal of a work permit for the Reverend Nicholas Tweed — but union members are yet to decide what action they will take.

A general meeting of Bermuda Industrial Union members will take place on Tuesday at 9am, when members will discuss home affairs minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin’s decision to uphold the rejection of Mr Tweed’s application, announced on Thursday.

It is understood Mr Tweed has some support across the union membership, but one member who declined to attend yesterday’s meeting said that politics should not mix with the church — and said Mr Tweed did not have unanimous backing.

BIU president Chris Furbert, who announced next Tuesday’s gathering after a meeting of the special general council meeting yesterday, declined to speculate about its outcome, saying it was up for members to decide.

Yesterday, Mr Furbert and St Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church joined the People’s Campaign and the Progressive Labour Party in condemning Ms Gordon-Pamplin for upholding the Department of Immigration’s decision not to renew Mr Tweed’s permit.

St Paul AME Church appeared resigned to his departure, with sources suggesting Tuesday, January 17, is his deadline to leave the island.

Announcing her decision, Ms Gordon-Pamplin had said the pastor’s application had been turned down because it was incomplete and contained inaccuracies.

She said she was not prepared to make further details public without permission from the AME Church or Mr Tweed.

Since then, St Paul AME Church has repeatedly failed to reply when asked by The Royal Gazette for any information over its application. It has not been possible to speak with Mr Tweed.

Addressing the media at the close of a general council meeting yesterday, Mr Furbert fired a broadside at Ms Gordon-Pamplin, who he said had declared “I’m not the one” when she accused Mr Furbert of maligning her over the issue in September.

“Well, let me say to the minister, you are the one, and I’m coming after you,” Mr Furbert said, to applause from supporters at BIU headquarters.

Mr Furbert also accused the minister of going against the principles of her father, the activist and civil rights figure Dr E.F. Gordon, adding: “She is putting up a fraud, and it’s time for it to be stopped.”

He called Ms Gordon-Pamplin’s announcement “a dark day in Bermuda’s history”, and dismissed the minister’s statement as “four pages of garbage”.

“The Government wants you to believe they made the decision because the church violated some policy,” Mr Furbert said.

Referring to Mr Tweed’s activism and leading protests against government policy, Mr Furbert said: “The Government has made it personal because they don’t like the way the man speaks.

“He’s seen as a threat. That’s why they want him ostracised, like they ostracised his father over 60 years ago. Not going to happen.”

This was in reference to the pastor’s father, Kingsley Tweed, a former general secretary of the BIU.

“We are not talking about someone who just dropped off a plane. We are talking about a son of the soil. His father’s a son of the soil. He has family ties to Bermuda.”

The Royal Gazette queried why Mr Tweed had not obtained status through his Bermuda links, to which Mr Furbert would only say that large amounts of the applicant’s details had been shared with the Department of Immigration.

Mr Furbert added that the minister should have recused herself from the matter, since she had stated in Parliament that she had stopped attending St Paul AME Church over Mr Tweed’s views.

Ms Gordon-Pamplin’s decision had been made “because they want him out before February 3, when the airport will be coming back to the table”, Mr Furbert said.

On Friday, February 3, Parliament will reconvene to debate legislation for the airport redevelopment that has been staunchly opposed by Mr Tweed and other members of the People’s Campaign group.

Responding to Mr Furbert’s comments last night, Cole Simons, the Acting Minister of Home Affairs, said: “I would humbly suggest that if this were another application, Mr Furbert would be supporting the Government’s handling of the matter. But on this one he wants the Government to bend the rules.

“There’s no future in it. It’s a position that opens the door to favouritism, friends and family. Don’t we want to get away from that?”

Mr Tweed’s three-year work permit was due to expire on July 19 this year, and Ms Gordon-Pamplin said she received the application on July 13. Ministry policy indicates applications must be made no less than one month before expiry.

The application was rejected in October. According to a government spokeswoman, approximately 54 work permit applications have been refused in 2016, as of December 29.

In a statement yesterday, St Paul AME Church declared itself profoundly disappointed as it approaches a new year “without our beloved servant leader and pastor”. The People’s Campaign has described the move as “another example of a tactic in the One Bermuda Alliance Government’s war against the People’s Campaign”, with shadow home affairs minister Walton Brown claiming Mr Tweed had been treated unfairly and colleague Rolfe Commissiong branding it “a political vendetta”.