The dawn of statehood in St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla / by Rupert McDonald Byron.

This book is a historical novel about events which took place during the first two years of the introduction of Statehood in the British colony of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla giving it the status of a self-governing state in free association with Britain. The novel was written in 1967 and 1968 while the events which it relates were taking place. Its objective was to show how the unity of the state might be safeguarded and preserved in view of the disunity, hostility and rebellion which threatened to divide and disrupt it. In order to achieve this objective, the novel invented a new fictitious political party with branches in the three islands of the State. This party recommended that the Constitution should be amended from a unitary system of government to a federation, giving each island internal self-government. Although this ambitious plan for the preservation of the Trinity of Islands failed, the proposal for them to be given internal self-government was achieved firstly by the military intervention of Britain which removed Anguilla from the State and made it eventually a British overseas territory in its own right, and secondly by the granting of independence to St. Kitts and Nevis as a quasi federation in 1983 with each of them having internal self government. There was also a clause in the Constitution for Nevis to secede from the federation any time it wants by obtaining a two-thirds in the referendum. This book is accordingly dedicated to the independence of Nevis by the implementation of Clause #113 in the Constitution of St. Kitts and Nevis which gives Nevis the right to secede from St.