UPP accuses PM of politicising independence celebrations

The United Progressives Party (UPP) has expressed contempt over what its Public Relations Officer Damani Tabor said is the politicising of the nation’s independence celebrations.
Tabor was referring to Prime Minister Gaston Browne’s independence address in which he urged Antiguans and Barbudans to choose the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the country’s
apex court, replacing the London-based Privy Council on the November 6 referendum.
Tabor has asserted that the statement was misplaced in the prime minister’s address to the nation on Independence Day, Thursday – five days before the referendum.
“Where we are is a regrettable juncture where things have become a little too politicised of late. You would recall that over the 10 years of the UPP, even the themes were Antigua and Barbuda, One Family doing some noble goal that does not echo the manifesto of the previous election cycle or any party mantra,” Tabor said.
Prime Minister Browne used his independence address to the tell the people that independence would not be complete if the former colonial masters are still in control of the country’s judicial system.
“Even in this 37th year of our independence – to deny our people pride in who we are and what we are; and to mark us as inferior by suggesting we do not have the integrity to preside over our own dispensation of Justice. This type of self-hatred and condemnation of our own has no place in our modern and enlightened society,” Browne told the nation.  
“On November 6, we must show the naysayers, contrarians and yes butters, that we believe in ourselves; that we are the inferior of none; that we have confidence our capacity of our own,”  the prime minister had stressed during his address.