Today is June 30, 2023, a bitter anniversary: Many believe that by June 30, 2020, the day after the last election, all who voted for those promising alternatives to GST were betrayed. They were allegedly sold out to British demands the “Baronness” and others asserted could be averted with their votes.
And…Tomorrow is another, one year of GST since July 1, 2022. That day marked the nullification of our democracy, social norms and civil rights, our hope, joy, and economic dignity, with the cultural atrocity of GST forced into force.
Indeed, searching for a word, any word, to describe years of dereliction, the betrayal, and willful disregard for the will of the people – “burking” is not only alliterative, but apt!
Burking: To suffocate, and to suppress quietly or indirectly.
“Burking” derives from crimes of suffocation committed by William Burke and William Hare, who sold victims’ bodies for dissection in 1828.1,2 “Burking” is the gerund of “burke” – more delicately defined as, “to suppress quietly or indirectly.”3
Some might say that is what the Director of Overseas Territories did when he defended appointed parliamentarians overriding votes of elected Ministers in his 18th October 2021 letter.4 Glibly citing “many years and public consultation”, he said GST “original introduction was scheduled for 2017”: What public consultations? 2017 was two years before the PS Finance first stood before the Chamber of Commerce members and announced, “This is not a consultation,” in July 2019!
And… Saying the atrocity was committed “under the Constitution”4 the Foreign Office dismissed the 20% election margin ousting the government that made such clandestine agreements. That was quite a quiet burking. After all… how can suffocating a nation’s dignity and will of her people be so bad as long as it was technically within rules? Rules left bare by those who agreed to the sellout and whose “Constitutional reform” did little more than make Anguilla’s leader sound like a small republic head of state?
Burking Began with British Bureaucrats
We have traced the origins of GST again and again, a searing, serpentine nightmare that slithers around our necks and starts to squeeze at the first sigh of sleep every night, and tonight, for a year. It curled at our feet while British bureaucrats assented to unsustainable budgets, as our politicians borrowed against our children’s educations, our homes, businesses, sacrifices to save – taxing and taking so much as to feel like extortion, or indeed, burking.
The crime took our breath so slowly. First there were just a few, and then many more, and soon, even government workers could only breathe, surely only eat, with a second, and now, too many, a third job. The British “helped” politicians with ways to “increase revenues” and “collections” – teaching our leaders to curse us for delinquency they caused with crushing burdens, which they quadrupled, raising every tax, fee, and adding levies, while weeping they wanted more for want of our ability to pay them twice and then twice as much, again! And still feed ourselves.
… and Blundering Buy-in for “Broad Based Taxes”!
Amid the global recession, many may recall “VAT” and “broad based tax” in the 2010 Budget address one month after AUM government formation:
“It should be noted that recommendations were made by the Revenue Consultant during the recent Revenue Study undertaken in March 2010, that consideration be given to implement broad based taxes such as Value Added Tax. Madam Speaker, at this time we will not follow those recommendations, as to do so, would cause the economy to slow even further. The law of economics suggests that increases can have one effect or the other. (1) to decrease consumption or (2) to increase revenue. The decisions made to make those moderate increases are based on the above-mentioned goals. …we [have] been asked to go as far as to cut public services emoluments and even reduce the levels of the public service. We will vehemently resist that, as to do so would have dire consequences on the entire economy.” 5 Really? Did he mean only government workers needed to pay their loans, instead of everyone?
So. The British “asked” to cut emoluments and accepted this rebuff? Without asking to merely cap them and allow attrition? They were already squeezing the people for about $18 Million per month by then, in “broad based taxes”! How? Apart from ~2% from property taxes and later, the Levy, ALL taxes were “broad based” consumption taxes – charging the same rates and amounts to all. And the politicians were clearly confused – or misled – about the “law of economics”! They acknowledged Value Added Tax would “slow” the economy – yet increased the existing broad-based taxes to keep spending!
A Burking Tax Burden, a Prelude to GST!
But were British bureaucrats equally economically confused, or were they nurturing our fiscal vulnerabilities, like fattening Christmas geese with generational debt and Faustian “aid” only to exploit us by forcing GST? Some think sycophants lied about Anguillian wealth, as if increasing taxes could be paid in perpetuity without pain. But even if such lies were true, on what moral grounds did burking Brits think all Anguillian property was theirs for the squeezing? Was it totally foreign to the Foreign Office that we needed only private sector prosperity to develop our own nation while building reserves to avert more debt or needed aid?
They gradually forced us to choose between keeping bread on our tables, lights on at night and our mortgages paid ? or to pay more than 100 taxes only for them: To enjoy their cars, offices, year-round salaries, pensions, insurance, vacations, travel, utilities – eking out maybe ten percent for buildings, roads and services for taxpayers burked by a 52-week burden on a 15-week economy.
A Year of Economic Suffocation: Please tell them…
The recent House of Commons debate on Overseas Territories6 extolling self-determination and urging the UN to de-list us as “non self-governing” bears an ominous parallel to Burke and Hare’s efforts to ensure unblemished corpses for sale.
That begs questions: If the Director can see the wrong wrought by GST, obviated by opening our borders, by chance, would he tell the Foreign Office and Lord Goldsmith…
…That withdrawing assent would restore our democracy, dignity and civil rights, simply by reverting to prior taxes? …That such would reduce crime and keep our children from begging investors for food? …free businesses to thrive without tourists feeling taken? …To right the wrong of GST and right-size our government for a sustainable future, as the climate changes and the world becomes less sure?
Director Candler, GST is suffocating us. Please. Tell them. We can’t breathe.
Withdraw GST assent – and pass a balanced budget bill. Now!
This article reflects cultural and economic issues raised on July 5, 2021, at the House Select Committee on GST Public Hearing. 1 https://www.lsd.law/define/burking; 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders; 3 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/burke; 4 Paul Candler, Dir Overseas Territories, Letter to Concerned Citizens of Anguilla, 18 Oct 2021; 5Government of Anguilla 2010 Budget; 6 https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/b05ebc74-3359-4f0c-aa60-fe2537962602 (14:01:50sec).
