Chief Minister Howard Quayle says the Isle of Man will always fight any threat to its democracy.

A constitutional crisis was averted this week - albeit temporarily - when the UK Government withdrew a debate on the Financial Services Bill.

That was after a group of 40 MPs tabled an amendment that would have forced Crown Dependencies - including the Isle of Man - to create a public register of beneficial ownership.

Such a move would have had massive constitutional implications as it would have seen the UK legislating for other self-governing jurisdictions.

Mr Quayle jetted to London on Sunday evening to lobby against the amendment and the way it was being brought.

Later the same day, the UK Government pulled the debate, but the Chief Minister warned that it was likely to re-emerge within the month.

On Tuesday he gave an emergency statement to the House of Keys.

To a chorus of ’hear, hear’ from other MHKs, he said: ’While we welcome the swift action of the UK Government yesterday, we will continue to strongly resist any attempt to undermine our longstanding democracy.’

Mr Quayle added: ’The amendments proposed without consultation with us and specifically without our consent were unconstitutional, unworkable and in the opinion of our government, unenforceable. We may have been left with no alternative but to challenge the legislative provisions before the courts.’

However Mr Quayle, who earlier on Tuesday had appeared on Radio 4’s flagship Today programme to state the island’s case, said the Manx Government actually endorsed ’wholeheartedly’ the aims of the MPs who supported the amendments.

But it was for the Isle of Man to legislative for itself.

’They were designed to tackle money laundering and financial crime on a global scale,’ he said.

Law enforcement agencies in the island worked with international parties on a daily basis to the same aim, with the Manx Government investing millions of pounds, he said.

The UK has decided to adopt a form of public register, designed to help fight tax avoidance and money laundering, but Mr Quayle said the majority of EU countries were a ’long way’ from having working public register.

’There is no EU member state or internationally recognised model of public register which provides the required standard of accuracy in addition to balancing concerns regarding privacy and the safety of individuals’ data,’ he added.

’However there must be no doubt that we are fully committed to working globally in helping to define what those standards could look like in the future.’

Lawrie Hooper (LibVannin, Ramsey) praised the Chief Minister’s actions but warned it was a ’temporary reprieve’. He asked what else was being done to prepare for when the matter resurfaced.

Mr Quayle pledged to give Tynwald members a private briefing when he was in a position to outline the Manx Government’s action plan.

The Chief Minister added: ’It will come back in less than a month and I will probably be cancelling a number of engagements for the next two or three weeks to work on this.’

After the UK Government pulled the debate, the driving forces behind the amendment, Tory MP Andrew Mitchell and Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge, slammed the move as ’outrageous’.

Mr Quayle revealed that he had spoken to the two MPs and others during his London trip, ’to discuss their policies and ideas’.

Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK this week insisted that the UK did have a right to legislate for the Isle of Man and was entitled to intervene because the Crown Dependencies are threatening the principles of good governance by refusing to create public registers.