Closing argument: Labour is not working

By *Jomo Sanga Thomas

(“Plain Talk” Nov. 14, 2025)

In 1978, the Conservative Party in the UK, led by Margaret Thatcher, launched an advertising campaign, “Labour is Not Working”, against James Callaghan’s Labour Party in anticipation of the 1979 general election, highlighting the inefficiencies of the Labour government. Five decades later, Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party warmed over the slogan with a twist, claiming, “Labour is working for all ah We.”

The poor and vulnerable sections of our population to whom the slogan is directed must reject it for the most basic of reasons. It is not true. It is a big lie intended to hoodwink them into voting for a party that has long dropped all pretence of working in poor people’s interest. The mad scramble over the last nine to 12 months to fix roads, clinics, and schools, and to give away chickens, eyes, plantains, and money, is a desperate attempt to win favours and buy votes as the general election draws near. 

Twenty-four years after PM Gonsalves assumed office, the people on whose backs and votes he victoriously stormed into power have little or nothing to show. Their lives have not materially improved since being re-elected on Nov. 5, 2020. An increasing number of them have been pauperised, as the leaked and abandoned 2019 poverty assessment disclosed. Four out of every 10 Vincentians live in poverty. Unemployment, especially among the youth, is very high, and crime, especially homicides, continues to bring pain and grief to families who can least afford to bear the burden. Police, nurses, teachers, doctors and other public employees toil under the most horrendous conditions. 

Homelessness, begging among the young and old and drug addiction have reached crisis proportions, scarring and staining the tranquil beauty of our homeland. A looming mental health crisis fuelled by the wicked vaccine mandate that compelled or tricked people into injecting an untested, dangerous and disastrous toxin will plague us for decades to come.

For further proof of the rot into which ULP has led our country, recall the “political grenade” dropped by Mike Browne, one of Gonsalves’ top lieutenants who served as education and foreign minister. Browne, in a letter to the media, harshly criticised the ULP for “landing serious body blows to the working class: high levels of poverty, unemployment, and

under-employment, the wide gap between wages and survival, the draconian vaccine

mandate, the refusal to negotiate a new collective agreement with the Teachers’ Union

and the neglect by its parliamentary representatives”.

This stark reality flies in the face of the governing party’s claim that SVG is on the cusp of “first world status”. To people on low incomes and working families, the high-sounding drivel attributed to the Human Development Index is as vainglorious and meaningless as citing a gross domestic product (GDP) of $3 billion and a per capita income of US$10,520 in 2024. Our Country may be a paradise, but it works exclusively for the Gonsalves family and its local and foreign friends. 

Politically and ideologically, there was absolutely no attempt to raise the consciousness of the working people. On the contrary, the ULP leader stoked their religious and cultural backwardness. Exhibit A: on nomination day, Gonsalves had his supporters carry a banner describing him as the “King of the Caribbean”. Nine years after Rene Baptiste, the National Heroes Committee chair, suggested that George McIntosh, Ebenezer Joshua, Milton Cato (undeserved), and Dr. Pamenos Eustace join Joseph Chatoyer in our pantheon of heroes, there has been no action from on high. The heroics of Elma Francois, a Vincentian woman elevated to National heroine status in Trinidad, Sheriff Lewis’ leadership during the 1935 uprising, and Nello Ebu’s anti-slavery brave pursuits remain unknown to citizens. 

On the foreign policy front, a large section of our people disregard or remain unaware of the crippling US/European-led economic embargo on Cuba and Venezuela, scoff at their heroic efforts at self-sufficiency and survival and blame the revolutionary leaders for the difficulties experienced by the Cuban and Venezuelan people. In the absence of proper leadership guidance and education, and the Western media’s relentless effort to manufacture consent for regime change, some nationals glibly label Cuba a failed state sponsor of terrorism and Venezuela a narco state. 

Two Years ago, the Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves presented a 5-hour-long budget address that did not mention Cuba once, completely disregarding the tremendous contribution Cuba continues to quietly make to our social, medical, infrastructural and economic development. If Caracas did not have oil money, some of which can be funnelled into the ULP election campaign, Venezuela would be similarly abandoned. Meanwhile, pay attention, our government works overtime toadying up to the despot in Washington.

Foreign economic and political interests have captured the country. We cater more to foreign businesses than to facilitating the development of our own. Rayneau is the named aggregator for our fish and other marine products. Our government seized the lands cultivated by farmers for generations in Richmond and turned them over to Rayneau Industries to operate a stone quarry. Rayneau is now in the business of buying agricultural produce from local farmers and selling it to Sandals and other takers. Other foreign hoteliers and greedheads are salivating at the opportunity to snap up our prime land and beachfront. Soon, Rain Forests, a foreign concern, will open a depot at Calliqua, directly competing with local fisherfolk.

Not even in the construction industry are local tradesmen and labourers given a fair shake. Big companies like Sandals and Aecon, the company that built the port, and the Taiwanese business outfit building the hospital, imported upwards of 50% of the workers on these projects, thus taking bread out of the mouths of Vincentian working families.

Our country is saddled with a burgeoning debt burden with little to show as an income generator. With over $3 billion in debt and over $1 billion owed to Taiwan, our country’s leader boasts that he is putting a “hook in the gill” of the nation and dares anyone to try taking it out. The media class and erstwhile progressives accept such anti-national rhetoric without as much as a murmur. 

Rather than uplift our people and engage in programmes to alleviate poverty and encourage self-reliance, the government intentionally cultivates a dependency mentality. It boasts of borrowing millions and freely giving it away, all too often to undeserving party hacks who suffered no damage.

The foregoing is the Unity Labour Party report card as decision 2025 approaches. It is a damning report of disdain, disregard, disrespect, neglect, and failure. Nov. 27 presents the perfect opportunity to end Gonsalves ULP’s oppressive and exploitative hold on our country and usher in a new, challenging path of democratic renewal. 

*Jomo Sanga Thomas is a lawyer, journalist, social commentator and a former Speaker of the House of Assembly in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

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