Businesses are fully behind GST and the only people who oppose it are a few keyboard warriors shouting into an echo chamber on Facebook – and people who haven’t properly understood the proposals.
That has been the clear and consistent message from Policy and Resources (P&R).
Deputy Andrew Niles’ claim that businesses are unified in their support of GST is looking shakier by the day, with groups representing retailers, hospitality and industry all coming out against the tax, along with charities like the GSPCA.
But what about P&R’s other claim – that public opposition to GST is limited to a few keyboard warriors, a couple of out-of-touch backbenchers, and people who haven’t really understood the proposals?
As ever, Express decided to dig a little deeper…
What is P&R claiming?
Deputy Steve Falla – previously an anti-GST politician himself – said: “We live in a very different age now, where social media can influence perceptions, and by looking at social medial you would thing everybody is very against this package.”
P&R Vice President Deputy Yvonne Burford echoed his feelings, saying there was “misinformation circulating online”.
She said social media “doesn’t represent everybody on the island, but we do listen”.
Social media is where the groundswell of this opposition is to be found – I don’t tend to find it much outside of that.
Deputy Yvonne Burford
Essentially, members of the committee are claiming that the majority of the opposition comes from a few “anti-GST Facebook groups”, which are unrepresentative of wider public opinion.
Similarly, P&R President Lindsay de Sausmarez recently dismissed protests against GST during a recent public meeting in Alderney as “a couple of people at one of the meetings who were vocally oppositional”, while claiming their fellow islanders were “embarrassed”.
Likewise, both Deputy de Sausmarez and Deputy Burford have publicly suggested that people warm to the tax once they understand the fully “rounded” proposal.
Deputy de Sausmarez has argued that opposition is often a reaction to GST in isolation, saying that once she explains “the entire package beyond [the] GST aspect”, people “typically understand” it and sometimes “end the discussion in full support”.
The narrative is clear: ‘Don’t listen to the tiny handful of silly keyboard warriors, listen to the grown ups and you’ll discover why the tax package is perfectly palatable – you may even grow to love it.’
It’s a wonderful bedtime story for deputies to tell themselves, but does the evidence support it in the cold light of day?
How big is the online opposition?
Facebook is not a perfect snapshot of public opinion, as people who feel strongly about an issue are more likely to post, comment and join groups.
But dismissing online opposition as simply a handful of activists also feels difficult to sustain.
The main anti-GST Facebook groups have thousands of members.
‘Guernsey People Against GST’ and ‘The People’s Trust’ each have about 5,000 followers.
Meanwhile, ‘Guernsey People Have Your Say!’ (GPHYS) – which is not a single issue group – has almost 28,000 members, representing a huge proportion of the Bailiwick (and some people who don’t live here).
That does not mean all 28,000 people oppose GST – membership numbers are not votes.
But it does show that this is not a conversation happening in a tiny corner of the internet.
And while there are some very vocal supporters of the States and the tax proposals on GPHYS, the overwhelming majority of people commenting and posts appear to have strong reservations about GST.
Indeed, P&R members themselves have previously described Guernsey People Have Your Say as a significant forum for island debate – effectively a modern “town square”.
If Facebook is important enough for politicians to engage directly with voters, it is difficult to argue that the same platform becomes meaningless when the reaction is negative.
The question is not whether Facebook perfectly represents Guernsey. It obviously does not.
The question is whether it can honestly be dismissed as irrelevant.
Are the loudest voices dominating?
P&R could argue there is a difference between volume and representativeness.
People who oppose a policy are often far more motivated to post online, attend meetings or contact politicians than those who quietly support it or simply accept the proposals, meaning social media and protests can exaggerate the true level of opposition.
That doesn’t prove P&R is right.
But it does explain why ministers may sincerely believe the debate they are seeing online is not necessarily reflective of wider public opinion.
Is it mirrored in real life?
That argument, however, only addresses one part of the picture. Even if Facebook overstates opposition, does the same pattern appear elsewhere?
Members of P&R claim Facebook is not the real world – and of course they’re right on that.
A person can join a group, share a post or write an angry comment without ever attending a meeting, contacting a deputy or taking part in the political process.
That is a fair criticism.
But the opposite assumption also needs challenging: that a quieter public automatically means a supportive public.
In 2023 thousands of people marched against GST.
Sunday’s protest was undoubtedly smaller, but hundreds of islanders still showed up to register their dissent.
Have the rest all been converted to the GST cause by P&R’s slick PR machine?
Or are they simply worn down by years of debating the same tax, tired of feeling ignored by politicians, or unable to get out of real life commitments?
A lack of visible protest is not necessarily evidence of support.
Sunday’s demonstration against GST was not enormous. But neither was it empty.
As Deputy Haley Camp pointed out, orders of magnitude more people attended the protest than any of P&R’s events.
People can be upset about an issue without taking to the streets.
Last year, just over 100 people gathered outside Guernsey Electricity’s head office to protest price rises.
Does that mean only 100 people are upset at having to pay more for their electricity? Of course not.
They may, however, have felt ‘ignored’ – at least in the sense that the price rises still went through.
It would be little wonder if those demonstrators felt protests don’t work in Guernsey.
Aurigny spent a large part of 2024 issuing apologies for various issues, including cancelled and delayed flights.
As far as we are aware, there wasn’t a single mass demo organised.
Does that mean people weren’t upset? It seems doubtful the airline’s CEO, Nico Bezuidenhout, would agree.
Mr Bezuidenhout pledged to turn things around, and the evidence is – at least in the main island – reliability does seem to have improved.
Neither company claimed at the time the public frustration wasn’t real or said complaints on social media didn’t count.
And if the argument is that only a tiny minority oppose the proposals, it is reasonable to ask why opposition continues to come from such a wide range of organisations and individuals.
Business opposition
Dismissing protesters – online or in real life – is one thing, but it’s harder for P&R to make the same claims about the business community.
When some business people cautiously welcomed elements of the tax reform package, P&R highlighted that support as evidence that the private sector supported GST, while conveniently sidestepping their calls for spending controls.
But when other business organisations later raised concerns – including groups representing retailers, hospitality and industry – those objections received a noticeably quieter response from P&R.
Both things cannot be true.
Either business opinion matters as an indicator of public confidence, or it does not.
Speaking at Sunday’s protest, Deputy Rob Curgenven said: “When they [P&R] don’t like your answer, they don’t publish it – they bury it.”
P&R’s double standard over which business to listen to and which to ignore does little to undermine his point.
If politicians point to supportive business voices as evidence that critics are out of touch, it’s unfair to dismiss opposing business voices as unrepresentative – or ignore them altogether.
Emails to deputies
Deputy Falla recently said: “The way in which you make your feelings known as a citizen of Guernsey is through contacting a deputy and lobbying them, because they are your representative, and it will be them who is voting on this.”
That is difficult to disagree with.
But by that measure, direct correspondence should also matter.
Deputies have said they have received hundreds of messages from members of the public about GST, with the overwhelming majority opposed to the proposals.
Deputy Lee Van Katwyk said he’d received hundreds of emails, with the vast majority against GST.
Express understands more than 550 emails have been sent to some deputies, so far, with just 10 in support of GST.
Again, this is not a scientific poll. People who write to deputies are self-selecting.
A person who supports GST may be less likely to spend time emailing a deputy than someone who believes the government is making a major mistake.
But the volume of correspondence still tells politicians something important: there is a significant number of people who are engaged, concerned and motivated enough to make their views known.
Talking of polls…
While emails to deputies might not be scientific polls, one politician took it on himself to create a poll of his own.
Deputy Curgenven, who is staunchly anti-GST, set up an online poll which was filled in by more than 1,500 people.
Again, the results were clear – the vast majority are opposed to GST.
Critics will – rightly – argue that anyone who is in favour of GST is unlikely to engage with a poll run by an avowed critic of the tax.
If only the States had run its own poll, so it could know for sure.
Deputy Curgenven says it did, spending £36,000 of public money in the process.
However, he says the results have not been published, accusing the committee of “contempt” for the public.
“Have you seen the results?” he asked, “No – neither have I.”
“When they don’t like your answer, they don’t publish it – they bury it.
“Thirty-six thousand pounds, to learn what any of us could have told them for free.”
Having their cake and eating it
There is a contradiction at the heart of P&R’s argument.
On one hand, islanders are told that Facebook does not represent Guernsey.
On the other hand, P&R members have invested considerable time engaging on Facebook, responding to comments, hosting online sessions and making their case directly to users of those platforms.
Both the President and Vice President of P&R have been actively commenting on Facebook posts over recent weeks, including on news stories from Express, shared on our account.
If social media is irrelevant, why spend so much time there?
And if it is important enough to persuade voters, surely it is important enough to listen when voters use it to express opposition.
During a recent public meeting, Deputy Falla acknowledged that people were making their views known online.
He also suggested that those attending the meeting were likely to be opposed to GST.
That raises an obvious question: if the only critics of the policy are hiding behind their keyboards, why would Deputy Falla assume the room was mostly against the tax?
The bigger question
The debate over GST is now not just about the tax itself.
It is about trust.
Whether you agree with GST or not, it’s undeniable the last few months have undermined the public’s trust in politicians.
It’s not just the sense the public isn’t being listened to.
P&R isn’t fully answering Freedom of Information requests and it’s been accused of denying elected politicians the right to see the figures behind the policy, claiming privacy concerns.
At Sunday’s protest, Deputy Camp criticised the lack of transparency from P&R and the civil service.
Rejecting any suggestion deputies had seen the GST figures, she told the crowd: “We haven’t – we are allowed to see snippets.”
Rightly or wrongly, the perception in the court of public opinion is that islanders are not being given the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
P&R may ultimately be right that the full package is better understood when explained in detail. Some people may genuinely change their minds once they hear the arguments.
They may also be right that it’s the least bad option for the island.
But dismissing opposition as a social media phenomenon risks creating the impression that concerns are not being heard.
Deputy Burford claimed P&R was “listening”, but to many islanders it really doesn’t feel that way.
The public may not always be right.
But neither are they simply an internet mob.
The challenge for P&R is not convincing people that Facebook is imperfect.
Everyone knows that.
The challenge is convincing people that the anger they see there – and hear elsewhere – is not telling them something important.
A town square is not just a place to talk, it’s a place to listen
If, as Deputy Burford herself has suggested, Facebook has become Guernsey’s “new town square”, then P&R cannot dismiss what is being said there simply because they dislike the message.
A town square is not only somewhere to explain your policies – it is somewhere you have to listen.
Whether social media reflects wider opinion is ultimately hard to prove.
But as opposition continues to appear in business groups, protests, correspondence and public meetings, dismissing it as simply a handful of keyboard warriors becomes increasingly difficult.
