Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley last night hit back at the British MP who raised the plight of Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als strand­ed in the UK due to the clo­sure of T&T bor­ders since March.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment post-Bud­get meet­ing in Bel­mont, Row­ley de­scribed Steven Bak­er, the Con­ser­v­a­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Wycomb, as an “itin­er­ant British MP” that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress had found to raise the is­sue in the UK Par­lia­ment.

Speak­ing in the UK Par­lia­ment on Tues­day, Bak­er ap­pealed to the T&T Gov­ern­ment to repa­tri­ate its cit­i­zens strand­ed in the UK.

“I’ve got Trinidad and To­ba­go res­i­dents or cit­i­zens in my con­stituen­cy burn­ing through their sav­ings re­al­ly ter­ri­fied about fail­ing to get home to pro­tect their homes and busi­ness­es from ap­proach­ing se­vere weath­er. Can I ask the min­is­ter to join me in call­ing on Trinidad and To­ba­go to make sure their cit­i­zens get home, I think it’s our com­mon hu­man­i­ty to en­able peo­ple to re­turn home to pro­tect their homes,” Bak­er said.

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter told sup­port­ers that Gov­ern­ment un­der­stood the hard­ship be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced by cit­i­zens abroad due to the bor­der clo­sure as part of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, but had sent cash to em­bassies and mis­sions abroad to as­sist those who were re­al­ly des­ti­tute abroad while it ac­cel­er­at­ed the process of repa­tri­at­ing cit­i­zens.

While he ad­mit­ted the cash may not have been a lot, he said the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress got Bak­er to un­der­mine T&T by rais­ing the is­sue in the British par­lia­ment.

“The UNC once again, un­der­min­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion, the UNC through, through Mooni­lal and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, find some itin­er­ant British MP, some fel­lah called Steve Bak­er. He ig­nore what we have done and what we are do­ing for our peo­ple, he gone in­side the British par­lia­ment to go and raise is­sue about hu­man­i­tar­i­an con­di­tions for Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens on be­half of the UNC in Eng­land in the Par­lia­ment. So once again the UNC is pre­pared to nasty up Trinidad and To­ba­go’s name and tak­ing cred­it for it,” Row­ley said.

He said as fate would have it, he met with the new­ly-ap­point­ed British High Com­mis­sion­er to T&T, Har­ri­et Cross, at White­hall on Tues­day. The very next day, how­ev­er, was when he learned of Bak­er’s com­ments.

“By Wednes­day in the Par­lia­ment, I am dis­cov­er­ing that the UNC is in the British par­lia­ment at the back­bench ly­ing on Trinidad and To­ba­go and get­ting some per­son to por­tray our coun­try in the worst pos­si­ble light,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

“All I will say to Mr Bak­er, if you are in­ter­est­ed in the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and if you are in­ter­est­ed in the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and if you have noth­ing to do in Wycombe and you want to help us, we try­ing to get back ah set ah mon­ey that they thief from Trinidad that is in Eng­land, try and get the British to help us get back the mon­ey that they thief from Trinidad.”

He added, “They have al­ready got a se­nior coun­sel from Britain plead­ing guilty in a Port-of-Spain court for thief­ing pub­lic mon­ey with the as­sis­tance of UNC of­fi­cials. There is much more to that, so Mr Bak­er, you will be re­ceiv­ing a cor­re­spon­dence from me per­son­al­ly ask­ing you to help us bring back those who have stolen our mon­ey and have it in Britain and are in Britain, bring it back to jus­tice in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

In a wide-rang­ing ad­dress, Row­ley al­so touched on the pro­pos­al to raise the re­tire­ment age to 65. He said the NIB is “in dan­ger of head­ing to­wards bank­rupt­cy” and in­creas­ing the re­tire­ment age was one of the ways to pre­vent that.

He said there will be con­tin­ued con­ver­sa­tions about rais­ing the re­tire­ment age.

He al­so said while the planned pri­vati­sa­tion of the Port of Port-of-Spain may lead to job loss­es, the cur­rent mod­el un­der the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port hasn’t worked.

He was crit­i­cal of the UNC, de­scrib­ing mem­bers of the par­ty as “un­pa­tri­ot­ic un­der­min­ers of T&T.”

Com­ment­ing on the UNC’s con­tri­bu­tions to the Bud­get de­bate, which wrapped up in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Wednes­day, the PM said it was “the worst de­bate I have ever had the chance to see or par­tic­i­pate in.”

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by Dol­ly al­so spoke at last night’s meet­ing.