Barbados Opposition Leader Reflects on Challenges Faced Since Crossing Parliamentary Floor

The Barbados opposition leader says he has no regrets about crossing the floor of Parliament 13 months ago and leaving the ruling Barbados Labour Party.

However, he claimed to have been unprepared for the level of assault he endured after he delivered his first Budget Reply shortly after assuming the leadership of the Opposition Democratic Labour Party.

“I could not believe it. I stood up in this Parliament and spoke as leader of the opposition and it was not vanity that returned me to the recording. I wanted to be certain that I was cordial and polite and friendly…and I was unprepared for the assault on the night after the reply.”

His comments came in the 2025 Budget Reply which he delivered on Tuesday evening in the House of Assembly when he took the opportunity to revisit the first experience but noted he is serving with a sense of honour and duty.

“I was met with that violence. It wasn’t physical, it was verbal,” he added, referring to the character attacks. “Some of the most dangerous untruths,” he further recalled.

According to him, since the last Budget Reply he has encountered an intolerance to criticism in the ruling party which he maintains does not intimidate him.

“My job is to scrutinise, analyse, criticise and if necessary, chastise and I believe that I have managed to do it without any assault on the character of any of my colleagues in here. Not my style, not my content,” he told the Chamber.

“I am here about the business of the people,” he added, promising that his voice will not be buried. “I am meeting my constitutional mandate in opposition to government.”

He noted the government’s repeated reference to the “lost decade” to describe the last government’s term in office, Thorne said even then it was not like the present with people afraid to leave their homes and the young people fearing the bullet.

“This has not been an easy year. This has not been the best of times. Sometimes it has felt like the worst of times, the night I delivered my reply to the Budget. It was not a good night. The most vile assaults on my character I endured,” Thorne added about the aftermath of the 2024 Budget reply. (SP)