Celebrating the Commonwealth

THE EDITOR: I bring warm greetings from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to the President, the Government and people of Trinidad and Tobago as we celebrate the Queen’s 92nd birthday this week.

For the past seven decades the Queen has championed the Commonwealth and its peoples, including last week hosting the Heads of Government Meeting. From Australia to Antigua, Tonga to TT the Commonwealth spans geographical regions, religions and cultures. So it’s perhaps no surprise that this CHOGM was the largest gathering of leaders in Britain’s history, including a delegation from TT, led by the Prime Minister.

Some have asked me about the relevance of the Commonwealth today. Last week’s statement by Commonwealth leaders offers an insight. In it, leaders committed to work together to deliver a fairer, more prosperous, more sustainable and more secure future for our countries.

This looks highly relevant here. I hear calls for more and quicker work to remove unfairness by challenging corruption and putting in place systems and laws globally to hold the corrupt accountable. Calls for fairer treatment of women, a drive to crush gender-based violence and to fight for greater equality for women. And for the rights of others, particularly the LGBTI community. Some also have voiced serious concerns and complaints at the outcome of the recent legislative challenge. But the world is changing, and as it does we have a choice either to try and shape it as best we can, or get left behind. Britain is supporting our values with investment: an additional £5 million globally for the Queen Elizabeth Commonwealth Scholarship fund to support girls’ education, and £5.6 million for support to reform LGBT and gender equality legislation.

Fairer also means mistakes are corrected and lessons learnt. Last week the British Government was held to account for a wrong approach, on the treatment of Windrush citizens threatened with deportation, though none yet as far as we know originally from this country. The British Prime Minister has rightly issued an apology, established a task force and pledged we will compensate anyone who has suffered.

As we head towards Brexit in 2019, building our shared prosperity with TT and Caricom is a priority. Of nine new British diplomatic posts being opened across the Commonwealth, four will be in the Caribbean — The Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines. A sign of our commitment to this region.

That this region needs a more sustainable future is not in question to anyone who sees how vulnerable small-island States are to natural disasters. We saw again last autumn the realities of the damage done regionally by climate change. So we applaud TT’s commitment shown by its ratification of the Paris agreement earlier this year. We have offered our help in supporting its implementation.

Finally, too many people here still tell me they want to feel more secure, with less crime and less violence. I am realistic and frank about the new threat from terrorism, the murder rate, the sheer quantity of guns on the street. I’m also committed to providing British support to tackle the issues, including helping refine the criminal justice system, to end the sense of impunity and enable the more timely dispensation of justice. The government security agreement we signed six months ago provides a framework for decisive action.

So as we mark the Queen’s birthday, we also celebrate a shared bilateral and Commonwealth agenda of a fairer, more prosperous, more sustainable and more secure future for our two countries.

TIM STEW

British High Commissioner