Do we like Mia Mottley?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decent record on climate and anti-discrimination, with one contested position (marriage left to a referendum) and one regional stoush.
Mia Mottley is the Barbadian PM who has become one of the loudest voices for small and poor countries on the world stage. She became Barbados's first woman prime minister in 2018, when her party wiped out the government of the day and won every seat. In February 2026 she did it again, taking all 30 seats for a third term.
Her signature fight is climate money. She pushed the Bridgetown Initiative, a plan to overhaul development lending so poorer nations can fund climate defences and pause debt payments after disasters. At COP27 she argued the system is broken, and Barbados issued its first bond with a disaster-pause clause.
The UN gave her a 2021 Champions of the Earth award for policy leadership. It credited her with steering Barbados toward a plan to phase out fossil fuels by 2030, and she used the moment to rail against the “faceless few” pushing the world toward catastrophe.
On the harm test, we found nothing nasty. When a BBC interviewer asked in 2020 whether Barbadians should be “allowed” to be gay, she called it a most inappropriate question and said the real question is whether to discriminate, adding “we will not”. Her government agreed to recognise same-sex civil unions but put marriage to a referendum, which some advocates found too cautious.
One fair caveat: the 2022 repeal of Barbados's buggery and indecency laws came from the High Court, brought by advocates, not from her government. That ruling is the court's, not hers. We found nothing in what we read about what she did on it, so credit her words and the civil unions, not the repeal.
She also picks fights on principle. In 2025 she said she'd accept losing her US visa over defending Cuban medical workers, who she said are paid the same as Barbadians, rejecting trafficking claims. In July 2026 she called Suella Braverman's idea that former colonies should repay Britain “asinine”, saying the Caribbean is asking for justice, not charity.