A FASCINATING idea was floated by Jersey’s chief minister last week. Senator Terry Le Sueur suggested that Guernsey and Jersey could eventually federate and become a sort of European version of St Kitts and Nevis. It’s not the first time this concept has been explored, but I very much doubt we’ll see it come about unless the islands are forced into it by adversity.

One reason for being sceptical about the idea was highlighted by the Jersey chief minister’s mistaken use of terminology. He talked about Guernsey and Jersey becoming ‘one bailiwick’. That’s something very different from federation or political union. Guernsey and Sark are part of a single bailiwick but maintain totally separate political regimes.

Even the third player in our bailiwick, Alderney, has chosen not to move any closer to political union with Guernsey in the 64 years since the current arrangement was put in place. Indeed, at times there seems to be growing dissatisfaction in Alderney with the level of control the Guernsey States exercises in the northern isle.

So if federation was solely an issue for Guernsey and Jersey it might, just about, be possible. But achieving a four-way agreement would be very difficult indeed.

The reservations in Alderney over the current arrangements also flag up another potential problem for any merger between Jersey and Guernsey. In any political marriage, the smaller party always thinks it is being hard done by.

Just as many people in Alderney today think – wrongly – that Guernsey is getting the better deal from our relationship, so the Guernsey population would be very wary of being governed by a parliament where most of the members were elected by Jersey. That feeling may be unfair, and it might be overcome in time, but it would be a major hurdle to creating a federation in the first place.

At the risk of sounding like a stereotypical Guernseyman, worries about ‘being governed by Jersey’ have a practical as well as an emotional element to them at the moment. I know I go out of my way to highlight faults with our own administration on a regular basis. That’s a columnist’s job. But beyond doubt, Guernsey is being much better governed than Jersey at the moment. Or should that be that Jersey’s government is even worse?

Guernsey’s economy is stronger, unemployment is lower, spending is under better control and the budget deficit is less serious.

And, with today’s news in mind, it isn’t Guernsey which seemed to want to drive itself into the ground with an obsessive desire to levy 0% corporation tax.

The very fact that Jersey and Guernsey took such different stances over zero-10 shows just how unsuited the current climate is to creating a political union.

If ever there was an issue on which the two islands should have been cooperating closely and coming up with a common response, it was this.

And yet we’ve seen quite the opposite, with inter-insular competition coming before cooperation – again, seemingly mainly driven by Jersey.

All this is not to say that I’m negative about Guernsey and Jersey cooperating more. Quite the opposite. The opportunities for synergy and cost-saving if both islands work closer together are legion.

In so many areas, both Guernsey and Jersey suffer from diseconomies of scale. They have to provide full-blown services for populations that in the UK would be plugged into a regional provision serving a million or more.

Of course, we would have to be careful how our services were shared. For example, we wouldn’t want to force sick islanders to jump on a Trislander each time they wanted treatment.

But there are so many administrative functions that could be shared with goodwill on both sides that it’s hard to know where to start.

But full political union when one island has a ministerial/cabinet system and the other has overwhelmingly rejected it?

How could we harmonise radically different housing laws when just tinkering with ours has proved hugely problematical? And do we fancy following Jersey down the GST route?

It all seems very unlikely, particularly when the smaller – and therefore more wary – island is doing so much better. What has Guernsey got to gain that can’t be achieved through proper cooperation between two independent islands?

Of course, there is one way that the potential problems could be overcome.

If Senator Le Sueur wants to propose to the Jersey States that it lets Guernsey govern both islands, then we might just consider it.