Saturday 14 April 2012

This is a letter that I have sent to the Jersey Evening Post regarding Senator Bailhache's article named 'Let's stand up for ourselves':


My name is Liam Renouf and I am a 16 year old student and am in Year 12 at Hautlieu School.
On Thursday the 12th of April I read the article in the JEP titled ‘Let’s stand up for ourselves!’ In this article it stated Senator Bailhache’s idea that ‘Jersey needs either to develop a stronger more independent personality or face up to the idea of being a ‘satellite’ of the UK unable to challenge assaults on our own industries and our abilities to make our own decisions.’
As a young person and a student in particular, I feel to weaken an already tense relationship between the United Kingdom and Jersey would be detrimental to Jersey’s well being as a crown dependency. Jersey has always to me had this aura of being a very traditional and conservative island with the famous saying ‘there’s a boat in the morning.’ It really is time for change in Jersey and for us to stop getting on our high horse about being from Jersey for the sake of being from Jersey and to really scrutinise the decisions made here by our states’ members.
As a Renouf I am from strong Jersey decent. I studied Jerriais for a number of years and take an interest in Jersey’s history. However the idea of supporting every single decision Jersey makes because you come from Jersey has to stop.
We cannot isolate ourselves any further from the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe then we already are. In my passport it states that ‘The holder is not entitled to benefit from EU provisions relating to employment or establishment.’ Jersey is already isolated enough, we need to look at how we can strengthen our relationship with the UK. Senator Bailhache needs to address the weaknesses in the relationship rather than finding excuses to cover up the island’s patriotism. This is not an attack on Senator Bailhache himself I just believe that Jersey needs to shake off old views and start living in a progressive 2012!