A letter published by Antigua News Room is sounding the alarm over renewed discussions within the United Progressive Party about forming a breakaway political group, warning that such a move would be strategically disastrous and condemn the opposition to irrelevance for decades.
According to Antigua News Room, the letter — signed under the pseudonym 'UPP and Upset' — targets what it describes as well-meaning but misguided MPs and their supporters who are once again entertaining the idea of launching a new party. The author argues the strategy is neither viable nor appropriate, particularly at such a critical electoral moment.
The letter acknowledges sympathy for reform-minded members of the UPP, noting the frustration born from polling data showing Prime Minister Gaston Browne leading opposition leader Jamale Pringle by margins of three-to-one or four-to-one, depending on the poll. "The 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 margin between the PM and Pringle is a brutal thing to people who believe in data," the letter states.
The author catalogues five previous attempts to reform the UPP leadership, each of which collapsed before bearing fruit. These included a proposed mediation by elder statesmen Baldwin Spencer and Harold Lovell, an effort to remove Pringle as Opposition Leader via a letter to the Governor General, an earlier attempt at forming a new party, a push to install Trevor Walker as a unifying Opposition Leader, and a final effort to recruit Lovell back into the leadership role. All five efforts, the letter contends, failed due to disunity, poor execution, or a lack of political will.
Rather than pursuing a new party, the author argues that surviving UPP MPs should focus entirely on retaining as many seats as possible in the upcoming election. The letter dismisses reports of late-night Zoom calls in which names and draft constitutions for a new party are allegedly being discussed, calling the exercise a dangerous distraction.
The central argument against the new party strategy rests on two pillars. First, there is no guarantee that the current UPP leadership and its loyalists would agree to reunification with a breakaway faction — and every reason to believe they would not. Second, the letter draws a historical comparison to the Progressive Labour Movement, noting the long gap between its collapse and the UPP's eventual electoral success in 2004, suggesting a new party could remain non-competitive for twenty years or more.
"This idea of using a new party as a bridge to retaking control of the current UPP must be abandoned if there is any hope of having a viable opposition in this country," the letter states.
Instead, the author urges UPP MPs who survive the April 30 election to pursue an orderly leadership transition at the next UPP Convention. That path, the letter argues, offers a far more realistic route to rebuilding the party than a high-risk split that could permanently fracture the opposition vote.
