Bermuda's politics: home rule under a governor from London

What the governor keeps for the Crown

The governor is appointed by the King on the advice of the British Prime Minister and holds office during the King's pleasure. Section 62 of the Bermuda Constitution Order 1968, as the Government of Bermuda summarises it, gives the governor responsibility for external affairs, defence including the armed forces, internal security and the police. The governor is also commander-in-chief of the Royal Bermuda Regiment and appoints the puisne judges, the police commissioner, the auditor general and the parliamentary registrar.

The reserved list is short, and the governor works with the elected government on most of it. According to the Government of Bermuda, the governor meets the premier weekly, and is expected to observe international obligations and protect the independence of the judiciary and the political impartiality of the public service. A deputy governor, appointed through instructions from the Secretary of State, acts when the post is vacant or the governor is away and is responsible for making sure Bermuda meets the obligations the United Kingdom has taken on for it, on marine, aviation, environmental and human rights questions. The Bermudian government is consulted on any international negotiation affecting the territory.

Behind both sits Westminster. The United Kingdom keeps responsibility for ensuring good government, and the Parliament there retains ultimate legislative authority.

How the premier answers to the House

The elected side is a Westminster parliament in small. After an election the governor invites the leader of the largest party in the House of Assembly to form a government as premier, and the premier chooses a cabinet of 14 from the members of both chambers. The House has 36 members, each elected for a single-seat constituency, and an election must be held at least every five years.

The upper chamber is appointed. The Senate, called the Legislative Council until 1980, has 11 members: five appointed by the governor in consultation with the premier, three in consultation with the leader of the opposition and three at the governor's own discretion. It acts as a revising chamber and sits for the same term as the House.

The structure is older than the constitution. The elected House of Assembly first met in 1620, with an appointed council acting as upper house and cabinet together. The council was split in 1888 into an Executive Council, the forerunner of the cabinet, and a Legislative Council. The 1968 reorganisation, as the Wikipedia account of the Parliament has it, legalised political parties, created the post of premier as leader of the governing party and gave the opposition an official place.

Why landowners once had several votes

The franchise began narrow and became narrower by design. Voting was at first restricted to men but carried no property qualification, because almost all land belonged to absentee company shareholders until the 1630s. When tobacco profits fell, investors sold to the agents and tenants on their lots, and a property qualification followed. The Wikipedia account of Bermudian politics says it was introduced to keep down the number of non-white and poor white voters, and that a minimum property value was set when the number of non-white landowners began to rise. In 1960 the threshold was £60.

The qualification counted per parish. A man could vote in every parish in which he owned land of sufficient value, so the richest white landowners could cast as many as nine votes. When the House of Assembly debated a Cup Match holiday in November 1946, the National Museum of Bermuda records, only 7% of the population could vote and most members were white men.

The first election held on universal adult suffrage and equal voting took place on 22 May 1968. Until then the franchise had been limited to property owners over the age of 21.

Why the constituencies were redrawn

Equal voting did not end the parish weighting at once. The House elected in 1968 had 40 members from 20 districts, two from each, drawn on the old parish boundaries, and those districts held very different numbers of voters. The Wikipedia account records that the arrangement favoured voters in small parishes with predominantly white populations.

The change came by Order in Council, the route the United Kingdom uses to amend a territory's constitution. In 2001 the Bermudian government began moving to abolish the dual-seat parish constituencies. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office prepared one order empowering a Constituency Boundaries Commission to recommend single-member seats, the commission held public meetings, the governor sent its report to the Secretary of State with the views of the House, and a second order made the amendments. The 2003 election was fought on 36 single-seat constituencies of roughly equal population. Annual voter registration was abolished in the same period.

How the party system took shape

Parties came late. The Progressive Labour Party was formed in February 1963 with mainly Black and working-class support, and its leadership soon drew heavily on Bermudians of West Indian descent. The United Bermuda Party followed in 1965 with the backing of most white voters and some Black ones. A splinter group from the PLP formed the Bermuda Democratic Alliance in 1967; it disbanded in 1970, and the National Liberal Party that replaced it contested elections without success until 2003.

The results show two long spells of one-party government, each ended by a single election.

Leadership has changed hands between elections as often as at them. Jennifer Smith became the first PLP premier in 1998 and was ousted by her party after the 2003 election, when William Alexander Scott replaced her. Ewart Brown took over in October 2006 and Paula Cox in October 2010. On the other side, Craig Cannonier of the One Bermuda Alliance became premier after the 2012 election and resigned in May 2014 over contributions by US businessmen to his party's 2012 campaign; his deputy, Michael Dunkley, replaced him.

The One Bermuda Alliance was formed in 2011 from a merger of the United Bermuda Party and the Bermuda Democratic Alliance. According to the Wikipedia account, it was driven by polls showing that the PLP would win a fourth term against either opposition party standing alone.

Where the independence question stands

Independence was in the PLP's founding programme. Its 1968 platform called colonialism a cancer and promised to go to London to discuss independence. The question was finally put by a United Bermuda Party government in 1995, and the party itself was split. The PLP called on its supporters to boycott the vote, saying the government had offered no plan for constitutional reform. The two Wikipedia accounts give slightly different figures for the result of 16 August 1995: a turnout of 59% with 74% against in the article on the referendum, and a turnout of just over 58% with over 73% against and 25% in favour in the article on Bermudian politics. Premier Sir John Swan, who had backed independence, resigned.

The PLP that won in 1998 left independence out of its platforms in 1998 and 2003. In 2001 Premier Jennifer Smith said independence would not be addressed in her government's first term and probably not in its second, and her government turned first to what it called prerequisites: the end of annual voter registration and the redrawing of the constituencies described above. The British Overseas Territories Act of February 2002 then gave Bermudians British citizenship, with the right to live and work in Britain and to pass it to their children. Britannica notes that this citizenship would not pass automatically to citizens of an independent Bermuda. The British white paper behind the act stated that the territories would remain British for as long as they wished. A poll of 356 people by the Bermuda Sun in March 2002 found 66.9% interested in accepting British citizenship and 18% who would refuse it; the poll was disputed. An independence commission was set up in 2004 and reported in 2005.

The United Nations keeps its own record. Bermuda has been on the list of non-self-governing territories since 1946, after the United Kingdom transmitted information under Article 73 e of the Charter, and the General Assembly adopts a resolution on the territory every year. In May 2024 the list held 17 territories, ten of them administered by the United Kingdom.

Who speaks for Bermuda abroad

The United Kingdom does, and Bermuda has no seat at the United Nations. To promote its economic interests the territory keeps representative offices in London and Washington. Only the United States, with a consulate general, and Portugal, with a consulate, have full-time diplomatic representation on the islands, and 17 countries keep honorary consuls. Bermuda joined the Caribbean Community as an associate member in July 2003, a decision opinion polls in two Bermudian newspapers showed most residents opposed.

The line between devolved and reserved power was tested on 11 June 2009, when four Uyghur men released from the Guantánamo Bay detention camp were transferred to Bermuda after secret talks between the Bermudian and United States governments. The British Foreign Office said publicly that it should have been consulted on whether the matter fell within Bermuda's competence or was a security question, for which Bermuda had no delegated responsibility. In August 2018 the four were granted limited Bermudian status, with every right except the vote.

The islands have also served as neutral ground for the two powers they sit between. British prime ministers and United States presidents held summit conferences in Bermuda in December 1953, in 1957, in 1961 and in 1990.

Which courts settle Bermuda's disputes

The courts follow the English pattern. The Magistrates' Court hears small civil claims and summary criminal offences and decides whether indictable cases go to trial. The Supreme Court tries the most serious criminal cases, hears most civil matters, reviews government action and hears petitions that a law is contrary to the constitution. Appeals go to the Court of Appeal, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London is the final court on every matter.

Policing shows how a reserved power works in practice. The governor answers for the police, but the officers have to be found somewhere, and Bermuda long recruited constables from the British Isles, which drew criticism that the force did not reflect the community. In 1966 the Bermuda Police Force began recruiting in the West Indies as well, starting with seven constables from Barbados. The official Bermuda Report for 1971 judged that this had not been particularly successful, because Bermudians regarded West Indian recruits as no less expatriate than British ones.

Defence is reserved, but the soldiers are local. The Royal Bermuda Regiment is the only military unit on the islands, an amalgam of volunteer units first raised at the end of the 19th century. Until 2018 it was filled largely by conscription: balloted men served three years and two months part-time from the age of 18. Conscription was abolished on 1 July 2018, and in early 2020 the regiment formed the Bermuda Coast Guard for search and rescue, counter-narcotics work and border control.