Editorial | Foreign Minister Hill?

Westminster-style Cabinet government assumes collective responsibility and does not admit to private or individual policy. When ministers speak, they do so on behalf of the collective.

So, when they hold, and publicly declare, positions that are contrary to official policy, they are expected to leave the Cabinet or be sanctioned for doing so.

Aubyn Hill, the investment and commerce minister, may not have crossed the Rubicon into becoming a policy freelancer, but he certainly teetered on it, without, apparently, any public reprimand from either Prime Minister Andrew Holness or Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith.

Hill recently attended a function to mark the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, seemingly in his official capacity as a government minister. Absolutely nothing was wrong with that.

But at times such as these, and in circumstances such as the Israel-Hamas war, ministers are expected to be circumspect in their public statements, which are likely to be dissected and parsed for policy signals.

Hill made absolutely clear his public support for Israel in the conflict, although he declared himself pained by the “unavoidable human pain that results as Israel exercises its right to defend its sovereignty and protect its citizens”. He did not speak to any concern to how Israel should prosecute the war– in accordance with international humanitarian law and the conventions governing war. That has been the declared and implied position of the Government.

Hill did say he spoke on his own behalf, and not for the Government, from a position framed by his Christian faith – “as a believer”, he termed it.

“I am one of those, and like you, who don’t apologise for who you are. I stand proud of who I am in a Jewish man called Jesus Christ,” Hill said.

Hill’s statement has rightly come under scrutiny for what may be implied in it, including whether he was sending smoke signals on behalf of the Government to constituencies abroad and at home. Even at this point, it is not too late for PM Holness to say for whom Aubyn Hill spoke, and whether he is allowed to pursue a parallel foreign policy.