A Virgin Islands delegation led by Premier Dr the Honourable Natalio D. Wheatley (R7) will negotiate a new constitution with the United Kingdom later this year. Photo: Internet Source

Social commentator and radio talk show host, Pastor Claude O. Skelton-Cline, has suggested that the majority of constitutional negotiations for the Virgin Islands (VI) with the United Kingdom (UK) should take place on home soil. Photo: Facebook

During his show, Honestly Speaking, on ZBVI 780 AM, on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, Skelton-Cline said events of the past few years have placed the VI in a position where these negotiations with the UK will take place “under duress” and the “most difficult of circumstances” in VI history. 

“I think you should invite the UK personnel to come to the Virgin Islands for that negotiation,” he advised Premier and Minister of Finance Dr the Hon Natalio D. Wheatley (R7), who will lead the VI’s negotiating team. 

UK should eat some of the cost

Admitting that he does not know how much it is going to cost the VI to send the team to the UK for the talks, Skelton-Cline opined that the UK should “be eating some of the cost by inviting them here for 70, 80 per cent of that negotiation”. 

He added that if the VI’s delegation has to go to the UK, it should be for the last round of negotiations to sum up.

Skelton-Cline claimed that more than half of the 2007 constitution negotiations took place before that team left the VI. He said personnel from the UK may have even come to the VI back then as well. 

“You and I, we got to learn how to move outside the narrow constrictions and boxes that we place ourselves in and begin to reimagine how we are best, efficiently [and] effectively to conduct ourselves in this new environment and going forward.”

This, he said, is why “leadership matters”, adding “we have to forge our way forward”.