Sixty years ago this week, the first Progressive Labour Party MPs were elected, SHAUN CONNOLLY looks back at the party’s journey from humble beginnings, through “Riot Season” and major splits to becoming the dominant political force on the island

The Progressive Labour Party may bleed green, but when its founders met in a garage in Pembroke to plot the way forward in 1963, they were thinking in terms of red.

A red stop sign for the ever-present racism that was still very much live just four years after the official end of segregation, red for the massive economic inequality imposed by the ruling colonial class on most of the population, and red for the blatant gerrymandering of what was then called the Colonial Parliament.

After seeing six MPs elected for the first time in 1963 and throughout the turbulent late 1960s and 1970s, a period one former PLP premier branded “Riot Season”, the party was increasingly knocking harder on the doors of power, surging to 46 per cent of the vote in the 1980 election, leaving it just three seats shy of government.

But then a major party split, not the first and certainly not the last, saw support collapse.

Dale Butler, a former Cabinet minister who served as MP from 1998 to 2012 before quitting the PLP over an internal row, has a sanguine take on the party’s political bust-ups.

He said: “There have been splits, but there are splits in any marriage, in any family.

“Just look at Prince Harry and his daddy, the King. It’s inevitable there will be cracks from time to time.”

The party rose again after the deep mid-1980s fracture and, helped by the implosion of the United Bermuda Party in the wake of the resignation of Sir John Swan as premier when his hopes of independence were buried in a 3:1 referendum landslide, the PLP finally swept to power in 1998.

However, Sir John has little but praise for what the PLP has done, saying: “The PLP has made a gigantic contribution to the island.

“Keep in mind what the island was like back in the Sixties. It was minority rule – the minority was ruling the majority.

“They have been the major force for social change in Bermuda. The island needed to be shaken up.

“The PLP came out of the industrial union, and people made great sacrifices for their causes.

“I helped them financially in the Sixties, as I did with the union, they can deny it, but I did.

“I think Bermuda is far better off as a result of the efforts of the PLP.

“We had to take on board some of their ideas and concepts; they helped change the UBP.”

Asked what has been the biggest achievement of the PLP, Alex Scott, who became premier in 2003 as the “unity candidate” after another bitter power battle in the party, said: “I think the biggest achievement of the PLP is that it exists.

“It has changed the political landscape dramatically. The old order was about pragmatism, the PLP was about principle.

“When the PLP began it was the era of the haves and have-nots, and the haves had the power. The PLP changed that.

“There is now a generational shift with the children of the founders in charge and they now have to answer the question, where do we go now? What are we doing next?

“What will be the progressive contribution of this generation that succeeded those who went before?”

David Burt’s detractors may see him as a divisive and defensive leader, but few can deny he is a highly successful one.

After taking the party helm in a tighter than remembered contest, Mr Burt took power back from the rocky one-term One Bermuda Alliance administration in 2017, and, then, using the old political maxim of turning a crisis into an opportunity, a “crisitunity”, he made a dash to the polls in late 2020.

Government handling of Covid was at that point seen as a significant success and, gifted with a weak and lacklustre OBA, the PLP soared to take 30 out of 36 seats in the House of Assembly.

A key PLP aim of a minimum wage will be finally realised in a few weeks’ time, but the age-old promise of universal healthcare seems as far away as ever, youth unemployment remains stubbornly north of 30 per cent and the push for independence appears dead in the water owing to general indifference.

Mr Butler is concerned the party has lost touch with its roots.

He said: “The PLP has a long list of achievements, but, having said that, why are Bermudians still not happy? And still leaving?

“It’s a sorry situation. Bermudians have always left, but never in these numbers before.”

Lionel Simmons, a former MP who quit the party during the 1985 schism, but later rejoined, recalled what first drew him to the PLP in 1968. “In the 1960s, Bermuda was very racially divided and the PLP appealed to me because they were fighting that kind of segregation,” he said.

“Over the years we were able to achieve a lot, but of course there is still racism, and there is still more to do.”

The PLP has been so electorally successful that there is a danger that Bermuda has become a one-party democracy where only the “Green and White” is able to command a majority.

Mr Scott cautions against such a view. “The younger generation need to be aware of history,” he said. “People used to say that about the UBP; now they are gone.”