The recent report by the Constitutional Review Group is an interesting but curious document.

It seems to answer two questions where everyone already knows the answer, and skirt around the one question that everyone wants answered.

Yes, of course Jersey could become independent of the UK if it wanted to. I can’t see the UK government sending a gunboat to keep us in our place.

It is also pretty obvious that we are close to being fully independent already, but that some more work would need to be done in preparation for becoming a sovereign state.

But whether we should take the big step and become independent is a question carefully avoided by the review group.

It’s a big question, of course, and it appears that there is a reluctance to answer it. Perhaps we’re afraid of taking such a dramatic step, or we don’t want to appear disloyal or upset the UK. But without asking the question and looking at the arguments on both sides, it’s hard to prepare for the future.

The work of the review group is based on the assumption that Jersey might be forced to seek sovereignty because of international pressure or because we can’t agree with the UK on an important issue. In that case, it is obviously wise to have a contingency plan – although the review group hasn’t produced that, either.

The problem is that this approach isn’t very helpful. How can we possibly know when circumstances are such that we are forced to declare independence if we don’t know what independence means for us? Independence might have so many advantages that it wouldn’t take much for us to go down that route. Or independence could be so disastrous that we would put up with anything rather than sever our ties to the UK.

So this report from the review group doesn’t get us very far, and sooner or later our politicians are going to have to take the subject seriously enough to debate the real issues.

What the review group has done is look at various decisions the Island would need to make if independence was forced upon it. If these recommendations are followed through, it will mean that the Island will be far better prepared should independence be required. But it raises a host of very important issues which will make this whole process far from plain sailing.

Probably the biggest problem will be money. Are our penny-pinching States going to be prepared to create another department with ten full-time staff, including trained diplomats, to look after foreign affairs just on the off-chance that we might want to be independent one day?

Then, of course, there’s the further 20 staff to man the overseas missions in London, Brussels and New York, when at present we can’t afford a room over a tobacconist’s in London for the tourism department.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea to expand our representation in London, and perhaps even more importantly Brussels (which, unlike London, you can’t get to easily from the Island). They could be required whether or not the Island wants independence. But a very good argument will have to be made to convince some States Members, and there is certainly not enough information in the review group’s report to make that decision.

There are many other fundamental issues raised by the report, and if we thought that Clothier was a long drawn-out process, that could be nothing compared to this.

What the group has achieved is to highlight issues such as whether the Island will need a written constitution, whether the States should have a second chamber and even the qualifications for citizenship. But the main problem with the report comes right at the end, when Guernsey is mentioned almost as an afterthought. Nowhere does the report look at the ways in which Jersey and Guernsey could work together on this independence project.

As the report rightly points out, the circumstances which might force Jersey to seek independence would almost inevitably force Guernsey to do the same.

So we would have a situation where two Crown Dependencies (or three, if you include the Isle of Man) decided to seek independence at the same time. Surely at least the two Channel Islands would work together in some way.
I suppose it is possible that each island would decide to ignore the other, each establishing its own network of foreign missions, its own security arrangements, its own seat at the United Nations and a host of other details which would have to be looked at on independence. But is that sensible? Surely the islands will work together on this as they have on previous occasions.

As the report points out, there are smaller states than either Jersey or Guernsey in the United Nations, so they could go it alone. But they certainly don’t have a lot of influence, nor are able to fulfil all of the obligations of a nation state.

Jersey and Guernsey on their own could well play as important a role as Vanuatu or St Kitts, but together they would have a louder voice and far more influence. They would also be able to share the £11 million a year ‘bill’ for independence identified by the review group.

This will obviously be investigated on another day, as will many of the other aspects of independence identified in the report.

A more substantive follow-up report from the review group will be published eventually, and I suppose there is no major rush to make political decisions on these issues.

On the other hand, it is entirely possible that we could have a row with the UK and/or the EU in the next couple of years and decide that we need to go our own way. But we will probably still not have in place the measures recommended by the review group.

So it wouldn’t be wise to drag our feet on this.
Peter Body is editor of
Business Brief Magazine