The comments of Deputy Peter Harwood appeared in the Guernsey Press & Star and on its website yesterday, in the wake of revived talk of independence in neighbouring Jersey.
As reported, Jersey’s assistant chief minister Sir Philip Bailhache reignited the debate in an interview last month in the Guardian, in which he said the island “should be prepared to stand up for itself and should be ready to become independent if it were necessary in Jersey’s interest to do so”.
Yesterday, the independence debate surfaced in the Isle of Man, where a member of the island’s parliament-equivalent, the House of Keys, asked that island’s chief minister "what if any action the [IoM] government” had taken to “identify the potential benefits” of being free of the UK.
According to the GP&S, Guernsey’s review of its relationship with the UK – of which it, like Jersey and the Isle of Man, is a crown dependency – will concentrate on two key areas – “the passing of legislation, and the ability for Guernsey to sign off international treaties”.
Harwood said Jersey’s assistant chief minister “has always had very strong views about the constitutional relationship” that his island, just 30km (8mi) from Guernsey, has with the UK.
“I’m not sure how representative he is of Jersey or the States of Jersey," Harwood added. "We have kick-started the constitutional review, but in our case we are looking at very specific areas where we would like to achieve changes.”
Harwood “stressed that the island needed the protection that being a Crown Dependency gave it,” the GP&S article said.
Almost two thirds (61%) of Guardian readers who responded to a poll on that paper’s website, which has now closed, said Jersey "should have constitutional independence" from the UK, compared with 39% who said it should not.
