From Barrie Bertram.
I READ the occasional references to an independent Jersey with great interest, and none more so than ‘Goodbye to all that’ (JEP, 21 January), a title not to be confused with Robert Graves’ book of the same name.

Yet there does appear to be grave confusion, not least in the former Bailiff’s interpretation of his job description. Any Bailiff appointed by the sovereign is there, as a Crown Officer, to look after the sovereign’s interest in the Island and similarly to see that Islanders’ interests are properly represented to His or Her Majesty and the sovereign’s Privy Council. One suspects however, that the job description did not include chairmanship of the Constitutional Review Group at the behest of the then Chief Minister.

The point is made that between 1995 and 2009 the former Bailiff ‘was in a prime position to see how the Island’s relationships with the UK government and parliament have changed’.

Undoubtedly the relationship would change with a Labour party in government for all but the first two years of that period, but one wonders, with ‘a prime position to see’, whether the former Bailiff was fulfilling a passive role sitting in the grandstand as opposed to being out on the playing field, sleeves rolled up, and seeing that the Island’s constitutional relationship was being safeguarded throughout.

Three examples of a breakdown in relations are cited, namely the reciprocal health agreement, Tasers, and border controls. These are comparatively low-level pin-pricks, the result one might suggest of inter-government cack-handedness (there is plenty of it around) rather than a sinister plot to get shot of the Channel Islands.

Where were the political antennae to pick these issues up before they hit the Island in a tsunami-like wave? Where was the proactive leadership to forestall the consequences and remind, again and again if it needed, of the Island’s position vis-à-vis the Crown?

Incidentally, the Isle of Man is also affected by the loss of the reciprocal health agreement. Furthermore, the use of comparisons with Morocco, Libya and Sudan are a little over the top.

The former Bailiff may have a personal and private opinion that independence is the way forward for Jersey, and he is perfectly entitled to that as anyone is.

However, he appears to have been compromised in his role as the Island’s senior Crown Officer by becoming chairman of the Constitutional Review Group and is now reinforcing that unfortunate position with the complaint that no one is doing anything with the December 2007 report.