We are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together: The Constitutional Convention of the West Indies Federation, 1958

Note: This committee will operate with full crisis backroom elements during the weekend. It will operate will crisis frontroom elements on Thursday and Saturday. Friday, however, will be a constitution-style frontroom, with significantly slower note cycles. More procedural details to come.

In 1958, a speech in the British House of Commons gave rise to a dream many pan-Caribbeanists had held for decades: the chance at combining the British Caribbean territories into one, self-governing entity. The West Indies Federation is envisioned as a means to unite the disparate economies, islands, and peoples of the Caribbean to give them more bargaining power in the Commonwealth, and eventually (in the minds of some), complete independence from the British Crown. While several groupings of islands had previously been assembled into a single state (such as the British Leeward Islands and British Windward Islands), none had attempted a project on such a scale. To that end, representatives from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent, and Trinidad and Tobago have met in London to draft the first Constitution of the West Indies Federation.

However, despite ostensibly having the same goal, the delegates are very divided over how the final state should operate.  Each colony has its own interests when it comes to how to best implement unification: while some want a strong central government to enforce direct taxation and regulate inter-island trade, others only want a political and defensive union that will be powerless without the assent of the constituent states. Additionally, the questions of full independence from the United Kingdom and how to seek redress for the legacies of colonialism and imperialism weighs heavy on the minds of many delegates, and the representatives must tread carefully to ensure that all needs can be met.