A pan-island vision is hard to see
LIKE a merger of two struggling neighbouring football clubs, the concept raised once again of Guernsey and Jersey working together more feels like a reasonable idea wrapped up in too much almost-insurmountable rivalry for it to make much sense.
Former Guernsey deputy Chris Brock, fronting the ‘Vision CI’ project with his consultancy Critical Economics, claims that early exchanges over his new report have produced ‘minor scepticism’ and that there is ‘general positivity’.
Mr Brock says the islands would be in a much stronger position if they looked to the future as one body, rather than taking different approaches to almost everything. This shouldn’t, he says, undermine each island’s heritage and identity, but should provide greater resilience and stability. So far, so true.
And we can be sure he is right when he warns that the pressures on the islands to remain financially, economically and socially stable, as our respective communities continue to want more and better services, is going to increase, not diminish.
Previous attempts to do anything meaningful together have crashed on the rocks of fears of insignificance in the relationship, and a reluctance to allow one party or other to become the major player, even on relatively minor items such as the CI aircraft registry.
But to even spend the time considering a federated future and how it may work, would take such a significant leap of faith and trust in each other that it is currently unimaginable.