Mr. Victor Banks 
At the Anguilla United Front’s thank-you rally on Saturday night, July 4, former Premier, Mr. Victor Banks, formally announced his retirement from active politics after forty years in that field.
He also told the gathering that his retirement would give him an opportunity to seek surgical treatment abroad for a hip injury he sustained two months ago.
Mr. Banks, who was unsuccessful in the recent elections, continued: “ A number of persons would have been aggrieved by the fact that I lost in District number 4 and this is the second time that I lost there,” he recalled.
“An election is part of a process where you win some, you lose some. But you always must have your heart in Anguilla whether you win or lose, and I have maintained that position all my life. I am grateful to the people from Valley South because I had been elected by them for over twenty-five years consecutively – for thirty years altogether.
“But I believe the Lord always makes a way and He has found a way, for me because my colleagues always believed that I should give them one more chance to complete the work that we have started. But the Lord has decided that it is not the way we should go.
“But I owe you a statement about what ails me. You see me walking around with a stick. You see me walking around with one crutch but I actually have two crutches in the car. I sustained an injury to my hip two months ago and I would have assumed that it was a normal issue – as I continued to use the remedies that were prescribed [for]…a sprained or sciatica problem. I recognised that there was trauma to my hip and the hip is seriously fractured and, in a sense, dislocated.
‘”It requires that I have surgery but…not surgery in the hospital in Anguilla, but surgery at a specialised hospital that deals with these issues. And so, I will be proceeding to do this at some point. I have got some advice from the consultants in the medical field about how I should proceed, and they advised me that I need to continue to use crutches for a period of time before they could proceed with any surgical procedure. So I have to adapt to that. The pain will continue to decrease as the bone continues to heal – and when it heals, in the way that it should not heal then I will be ready for surgery. So that is as much as I will tell you today.
“If we had won this election, and I was to go to do that surgery, I would still be concerned a lot more about what is happening in Anguilla because I would actively be involved. But, on this occasion, the Lord has given me the opportunity to focus on my health issues without being too overly burdened about the issues of governance in Anguilla.”
Mr. Banks added: “I thank you [our people]and my colleagues for the support you have given us in Government. I want you to continue to support the Anguilla United Front. I have strong, strong supporters who love me not only in Valley South, but all over Anguilla.
“As I said before, I have an injured hip, but I do not have an injured brain. I have the capacity to make decisions – and give advice for the betterment of my people based on my forty years of experience and my many, many years of formal training in education.
“I thank you so much. This will not be the last time. Enjoy this evening. It is yours.”
Mr. Banks’ address was met with prolonged blasts of vehicle horns and shouts of appreciation, and goodwill, from the milling crowd which surged forward in front of him.
