ANY hope that may have existed that Sark would be content with its democratic and PR victories in the recent elections and move on to try to reach some middle ground with its neighbours in Brecqhou appeared to evaporate yesterday.

The cause was a statement released through the Seigneur on behalf of the insular authorities that achieved two things.

The first was to confirm its complete lack of interest in the majority of the 140 or so employees who have lost jobs in the fallout over the affair because only 38 of them are island residents. The point that those 38 no longer have well-paid work of their choosing is also irrelevant to Sark’s powerbrokers, according to the statement.

It is also clear from the Seigneur’s release that the loss of 100 people who were putting at least some of their earnings back into the economy is also of no account.

The second telling point was that Sark denies there has been any benefit from the investment that has been made in the island. As the Seigneur put it, ‘there is little evidence of it’.

For anyone who knows the island, it is a quite extraordinary statement. Before Brecqhou’s involvement, Sark was going nowhere except downhill and could not even accept that its citizens should elect their representatives.

Brecqhou’s tactics have – at best – been unfortunate but its involvement beneficial. Its 15-year investment plan could have seen the island move towards organic production combined with leading class tourist facilities and was the equivalent of spending £125,000 per head of population there.

Yet the Sark statement demonstrates a detachment that many in Guernsey will conclude could only come from a system that until very recently deemed it acceptable for an accident of birth to entitle one individual to pull hundreds of thousands of pounds from a struggling economy with no year-round employment.

One of Sark’s complaints is that any benefit of investment has been mitigated by fighting legal suits. Yet yesterday’s news that the UK government has backed down on keeping the role of Seneschal indicates that the island has yet again been backing the wrong horse at the expense of its citizens.

If anything has been revealed in its true colours in recent days, it is the Sark establishment.