HAMILTON (Bermuda): The Union Jack still flies from flag poles in Bermuda, but few notice that it’s often upside down. The governor parades in a horse-drawn buggy wearing a British colonial-style feather-plumed helmet, but Bermudians themselves are as likely to support Brazil in a soccer tournament as they are England.

Blase about their historical links to Britain, Bermudians once again are wondering if they should dump the queen.

The passion for independence on the wealthy mid-Atlantic island and Britain’s oldest colony seems, however, even more lacklustre than most Bermudians’ fervour for their motherland.

A telephone poll of 407 people in March, three months after Premier Alex Scott called for a debate on independence, showed 65 per cent were opposed, 16 per cent were in favour and 19 per cent of Bermudians have not made up their minds.

Nor has the issue ignited young people — 84 per cent of 18- to 35-year-olds were opposed to sovereignty, according to the poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

“It’s the wrong issue at the wrong time,” said opposition lawmaker Trevor Moniz, who voted against his own United Bermuda Party to help defeat a previously unsuccessful referendum on independence a decade ago.

Moniz is typical of many whose wish to continue ties with Britain is based more on pragmatism than passion.

A British judicial system has provided the backbone for a financial services industry that has allowed the island first settled by English colonists in 1609 to become one of the world’s largest centres for reinsurance.

Opponents fear independence will mean jettisoning that legal tradition — a bulwark of stability that has helped give its 62,000 people living 900 km off the coast of North Carolina one of the world’s highest per capita incomes.

Historian Joyce Hall, who can trace her family back to the first English settlers, said the island owed Britain.

“Everything that is stately and dignified is British,” said Hall, who admitted she is a dying breed.

Yet Bermuda has a substantial population with its roots in the Portuguese Azores islands — including Moniz — for whom Britain holds little romantic appeal. American accents are now more common than British ones.—Reuters