The fall­out from the Unit­ed King­dom’s (UK) de­ci­sion to im­pose visa re­quire­ments on T&T na­tion­als has es­ca­lat­ed in­to a pub­lic spat be­tween Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds and Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) po­lit­i­cal leader Gary Grif­fith.

British High Com­mis­sion­er Jon Deen an­nounced on Wednes­day that T&T cit­i­zens will no longer qual­i­fy for trav­el un­der the Elec­tron­ic Trav­el Au­tho­ri­sa­tion Scheme. In­stead, those wish­ing to en­ter the UK must ap­ply for a visa through the British High Com­mis­sion in T&T.

In re­sponse, the NTA is­sued a state­ment blam­ing the de­vel­op­ment on the Gov­ern­ment's fail­ure in diplo­ma­cy and proac­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures, specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ing Hinds.

Speak­ing at the NTA's Peo­ple's As­sem­bly in Mt Lam­bert on Wednes­day night, Grif­fith dou­bled down as he ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of fail­ing to main­tain British-man­dat­ed se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port as the key rea­son be­hind the UK’s de­ci­sion. He called the pol­i­cy shift an “em­bar­rass­ment,” ar­gu­ing that the UK no longer saw T&T as be­ing on par with oth­er visa-ex­empt na­tions.

Re­call­ing his tenure as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Grif­fith said he faced a sim­i­lar is­sue when then-High Com­mis­sion­er to the UK Garvin Nicholas in­formed him that Britain was con­sid­er­ing visa re­stric­tions for T&T. In re­sponse, Grif­fith said he trav­elled to Lon­don mul­ti­ple times to meet with UK gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, who raised con­cerns about drug traf­fick­ing through Gatwick Air­port and Cari­com na­tion­als us­ing Pi­ar­co as a tran­sit hub to en­ter the UK.

Fol­low­ing those dis­cus­sions, the UK pro­vid­ed a list of se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures that need­ed to be im­ple­ment­ed, in­clud­ing es­tab­lish­ing an Or­gan­ised Crime and Nar­cotics Unit at Pi­ar­co, rein­tro­duc­ing the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre, de­ploy­ing ca­nines at air­ports, ap­point­ing UK se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­sors, and en­hanc­ing train­ing and tech­nol­o­gy.

"Every sin­gle thing they asked for, we were able to do the im­pos­si­ble, and that pre­vent­ed us from hav­ing the visas im­posed. That is the type of lead­er­ship we want, and we were able to stop it while the oth­er coun­tries had visas im­posed. Ten years lat­er, every sin­gle thing that we put in place to pre­vent those visas—you shut it down," Grif­fith said.

In a Face­book on Wednes­day, Nicholas- who is now leader of the Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment, sup­port­ed Grif­fith's claims.

In the post Nicholas said: "To be clear, 2010 to 2015 not on­ly did we pre­serve the visa free ac­cess to the UK, we ex­tend­ed it to all of the Schen­gen Eu­rope."

Hinds, how­ev­er, dis­missed Grif­fith’s claims as "pure fic­ti­tious imag­i­na­tion." In a scathing Face­book post on Wednes­day evening, he re­ferred to Grif­fith as "Gar­ru­lous G-String" and de­nied that any such se­cu­ri­ty threat or dis­cus­sion took place in 2014.

"Ei­ther that, or he is try­ing to out­do Calami­ty Jane for fac­tu­al­ly de­fi­cient con­coc­tions, in­tend­ed to mis­lead the un­think­ing and big-up dey self," Hinds wrote.

He al­so mocked Grif­fith’s cred­i­bil­i­ty, sug­gest­ing he would fit well among the na­tion's cre­ative minds, com­par­ing him to the late ca­lyp­son­ian The Mighty Spoil­er.

Hinds said the UK im­posed visa re­quire­ments when crim­i­nals and oth­er in­di­vid­u­als at­tempt­ed to flee there to evade jus­tice, which had led to a surge in asy­lum ap­pli­ca­tions from T&T na­tion­als.

"The un­for­tu­nate an­nounce­ment was made. In jumps G-String, den­tal-floss style, who had a mere 14-month cor­beau-sweat in that min­istry, af­ter Calami­ty Jane rolled over six min­is­ters, to claim that in 2014 when he was min­is­ter, he ne­go­ti­at­ed with the UK and did a thou­sand won­der­ful things to avoid the British im­po­si­tion of a visa re­quire­ment on T&T," Hinds said.

Re­spond­ing to Hinds’ re­marks yes­ter­day, Grif­fith la­belled him "not on­ly the most in­com­pe­tent min­is­ter ever but al­so a bla­tant liar."

He ex­plained that un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, con­cerns about UK visa re­quire­ments were com­mu­ni­cat­ed di­rect­ly to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty—not the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs.

"At no point has the UK’s re­cent po­si­tion on im­pos­ing visa re­stric­tions on T&T been a mys­tery. This an­nounce­ment is a per­fect demon­stra­tion of Hinds’ in­com­pe­tence and the cul­mi­na­tion of months of his fail­ure to ad­dress the is­sue," Grif­fith said.

He claimed there were ver­i­fi­able records prov­ing that the UK had raised con­cerns in the past and that the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion took spe­cif­ic ac­tions to ad­dress them.

Grif­fith al­so ac­cused Hinds of ig­nor­ing the UK’s se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns and in­stead de­flect­ing blame while mis­lead­ing the pub­lic.

"In­stead of ad­dress­ing the re­al is­sue—his fail­ure to pre­vent the UK from im­pos­ing visas on T&T na­tion­als—Hinds has cho­sen to en­gage in gut­ter-lev­el per­son­al at­tacks, com­plete with ju­ve­nile name-call­ing and in­ap­pro­pri­ate con­duct for one who holds the of­fice of Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. His pa­thet­ic re­sponse on­ly con­firms his ig­no­rance of his own min­istry’s records, his fail­ure as a leader, and his in­abil­i­ty to deal with se­ri­ous mat­ters like an adult," Grif­fith said.