Speaking at today’s October 22, 2022, Friendship Day Celebration between the VI and the USVI, the Governor casually mentioned that during a breakfast with USVI Governor, Albert Bryan Jr, he was asked about how he came to get the post of Governor.

“I said well, I wasn’t elected… and he said how do you get to be Governor of the Virgin Islands? I said well I was appointed by the Queen to which he said that sounds pretty good to me,” Governor Rankin detailed.

While some may see the supposed humour of the statements, for others, the Governor’s boasting of being selected for a top office in a democratic society could spark a fresh set of anti-colonialism discussions over the Governor’s seat and what exactly the office represents as a relic of slavery.

Early in 2022, one social commentator, Clause O. Skelton-Cline had called for the Office of the Governor as well as the associated Speech from the Throne to be dismantled and removed from the VI.

Calls for Speech from the Throne to end

Early in 2022, one social commentator, Claude O. Skelton-Cline had called for the Office of the Governor as well as the associated Speech from the Throne to be dismantled and removed from the VI.

“The UK still has a grip on this country constitutionally, a grip on our minds, and it is this kind of institutionalized speech that reinforces the position of the coloniser to those who have been colonised,” he said on the Tuesday, Jan 18, 2022, edition of his radio show, Honestly Speaking.

“I for one want us to rid ourselves of these kinds of relics,’ he added while revealing that his goal for himself and the territory is to be a part of a free and independent country.

“I am not at all happy and I not at all will participate in anything that attempts to affirm, reaffirm, celebrates all of these colonial-type relics,” Skelton-Cline detailed.