Party leader done; sees no way to break BLP/DLP grip

President of Solutions Barbados Grenville Phillips II is through with elective politics.

Despite being the most successful third party in the 2018 General Election, securing 3 772 votes, Solutions fell off drastically in the 2022 poll when it only mustered 784 votes.

Phillips told the CAMPAIGN EXPRESS he no longer believed there was any room for a third party in Barbados.

“I have come to the conclusion that the Barbadian public is either Bees or Dees and that’s what they will be for the foreseeable future. So for me, that’s why I’m really out of it,” he explained.

However, Phillips said he was willing to support anyone who wanted to put themselves forward under
the Solutions banner, though this was a major risk in Barbados’ political climate.

“If any members of the party want to go forward, then I would support them all the way . . . but it’s a big ask. I mean, they put themselves forward, and then the heavy hammer comes down with people losing their jobs. Silly things happen just because you’ve decided to offer yourselves [as candidates]; but that’s what happens.

“It may not happen with the Bees or Dees, because they’re basically one party. But if you want to challenge that two-party system, yeah, the price is extremely high,” he stated. 

The chartered structural engineer said he had not yet been informed of anyone wishing to contest the upcoming elections under Solutions, but he would check and see.

In his latest WhatsApp blast under his series called Difficult Conversations, he said most voters appeared ready to “force their family, friends and neighbours to endure another five-year term of poorly- managed public services and high taxes”. 

“The General Election date has been announced, but if Barbadian voters are not yet ready to support a third party, the results are foreseen. They will continue to load us with unsustainable debts, increase taxes to pay for those debts, poorly manage our public services and strip our freedoms until we are enslaved with chains of intimidation.

“Barbadian voters may be ready for a better party when they can no longer afford to pay their mortgages, maintain their houses or repair their cars, but to maintain our support, we are taught that for a small country, our public services and national economy are being managed as well as they can be.”

He added: “When Barbadian voters are brought to the edge of poverty, they may finally recognise that public services can be managed much better and it takes no special competence to spend borrowed money. We can do better.” 

Phillips said it had been independently verified Barbados’ economy could successfully operate without value added tax and land taxes, which contributed to the unnecessarily high cost of living in the country.

“Most voters understand that both parties are the same and stopped voting. They’ve observed beneficiaries of past elections being supporters of the winning party who loitered around the trough expecting spillage as their political masters fed,” he wrote. 

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