Dr Winford James
Max Albert and I continue our discussions on the Tobago Autonomy Question.
Last week we left Robinson searching for impregnability. This week we ask whether Farley Augustine and his executive council, as inheritors of Robinson’s obligation, understand what that search requires.
It is a fair question because they now possess a rarity in the national political landscape: an overwhelming, accommodating political mandate. His Tobago People’s Party holds all 15 elected seats in the Tobago House of Assembly, both Tobago seats in the national Parliament, and a strong willingness on the part of the Prime Minister to accommodate him.
To understand Farley, however, we must first understand what he appears to be seeking. His position has moved beyond the familiar demand for more powers from Port-of-Spain. He speaks increasingly in the language of self-determination: Tobago having authority to make its own laws and Tobagonians determining how their government should be formed and should work.
That distinction matters. He appears to understand that autonomy cannot simply mean Central Government deciding which additional functions Tobago may exercise. In December 2024, he rejected proposals which, in his view, would leave Tobago’s laws subordinate to national legislation, inadequately protect Tobago’s maritime space, and prescribe a governmental structure without meaningful consultation with Tobagonians.
Or so it seems, because we have observed nothing that indicates this kind of consultation.
He has had political opportunity; he still does. Before the 2025 general election, he openly described Tobago’s two parliamentary seats as bargaining instruments for autonomy, and Tobago subsequently gave his party both. Then, they went further in January 2026 and gave him 15–0. Surely, he can’t want more? Surely, he needs the support of all the relevant stakeholders?
But he must first set up the autonomy framework and call on the island to comment. Is that framework already developed? If it is, we have not seen it.
The present Central Government, that is Kamla, says autonomy is again on the front burner. Farley has called for Tobago to receive law-making authority by the end of 2026, followed by broad consultation, including referenda, on the governmental structure Tobagonians themselves want. But are these matters yet on formal paper?
Tobago and Trinidad have too much honey in the mix to squander the possibilities now. The elections have delivered an incontrovertible message: we want autonomy. But we are leaving it up to the politicians to fill in the details.
And while we love the accommodation between Kamla and Farley, we must put some cautions out there. Autonomy is not friendship with a Prime Minister, or two strategic parliamentary seats, or even 15 Assembly seats. It is political opportunity that must be turned into impregnable law.
A respectful relationship between the two administrations is desirable. Cooperation may accomplish much that confrontation cannot. Kamla will not always be Prime Minister. Farley will not always be Chief Secretary. And positive election majorities will not last forever.
Any settlement worthy of this historical moment must therefore survive all of them.
There are encouraging signs in Farley’s language. He insists upon Tobago’s law-making authority. He has challenged arrangements under which Tobago legislation could remain inferior to national legislation. He insists upon meaningful authority over Tobago’s maritime space. Most importantly, he says Tobagonians themselves must determine the governmental arrangements under which they will live.
When the constitutional proposals emerge, Tobago should see and interrogate the actual architecture before Parliament finally settles it. The people should know not merely that they are being offered autonomy, but precisely what powers are being transferred, what powers are being retained, and what safeguards prevent tomorrow’s Central Government from reclaiming through interpretation what today’s Government appears willing to concede.
Because Tobago should not be negotiating administrative convenience. It should be negotiating the constitutional terms upon which Tobago will participate in the Republic for generations yet unborn.
A badly constructed provision may survive long after the politicians who negotiated it have disappeared. Conversely, a carefully entrenched power can protect Tobagonians who were not alive when it was written. That is why this moment demands something greater than political instinct, popularity, or goodwill. It demands constitutional precision.
And here we encounter perhaps the most important question of all: Where is Farley’s Brinsley Samaroo?
This is not an insult to Farley, David Thomas or Joel Sampson. Nor does every parliamentarian need to be a constitutional scholar. Robinson himself did not have to be Samaroo. Tobago has eminent sons and daughters capable of serving this moment. They should be visible in it.
What is required is an identifiable, independent Tobago intellectual machinery: constitutional lawyers, legislative draftsmen, economists and public-finance specialists, historians and political scientists capable of examining every provision from Tobago’s standpoint.
Farley’s two MPs assume particular importance. He sought those seats as instruments of constitutional bargaining. Thomas and Sampson must therefore eventually do more than support an autonomy bill. They must understand that they would be voting to entrench and defend Tobago’s position – clause by clause.
In the meantime, we should all be exercising our minds with questions like the following: What design will give the people the best options for active inclusion in the process of making law to ring-fence executive activity and bring an end to decades of authoritarian rule? What would the bill reserve to Central Government? Can national legislation override it? Where would Tobago’s fiscal authority begin and end? Who would control the surrounding maritime space?
They distinguish autonomy resting upon political goodwill from autonomy protected by constitutional architecture.
Dr Winford James is a retired UWI lecturer who has been analysing issues in education, language, development and politics in T&T and the wider Caribbean on radio and TV since the 1970s. He has also written thousands of columns for all major newspapers in the country.
