Alex Borg: Bernard Grech backed me after columnist called me a Trojan Horse

Nationalist MP Alex Borg said that party leader Bernard Grech had privately “expressed solidarity” after a columnist described him as “Labour’s Trojan horse”.

“He [Grech] spoke to me personally, obviously he expressed solidarity with me,” the Gozitan MP said on Tuesday.

Borg was speaking outside parliament after Kevin Cassar, a medical specialist, opinion writer and former PN electoral candidate, said Borg was “undermining his own leader and promoting himself”. 

“While his leader was rallying the troops to stand up for his MPs' right to be heard in Parliament and against the Speaker's efforts to throttle the Opposition, Alex Borg was engaging in friendly fire, blasting his own colleagues and pulling the rug from under his leader's feet,” Cassar wrote in a Malta Independent article titled 'Labour's Trojan Horse'.

Cassar was referring to Borg's decision to apologise to Parliamentary Speaker Anġlu Farrugia "on behalf of parliament" for "attacks" he was subjected to. Borg's fellow PN MP Karol Aquilina was censured for insulting Farrugia. 

Writing on Facebook, Borg decried the opinion piece as a “personal attack”, and PN MPs including Adrian Delia, Charles Azzopardi and Joe Giglio expressed solidarity with the Gozo shadow minister.

Borg told Times of Malta various others had also contacted him privately to "express their support". 

His party leader Grech was among them, Borg said when asked.

Borg said he was offended by the article because of his long-standing Nationalist roots. 

“Everyone knows I come from a PN family. I think I have been in the PN since I was in my mother’s womb," he said. “I will always keep working for the party, no matter who is leader,” Borg said.

PN MPs discussed reactions to article

PN sources said that party MPs held a lively discussion during their parliamentary group meeting on Monday about Cassar's article and the reactions it had provoked. 

“No one alleged that Borg was a Trojan horse, but what we discussed were the reactions,” one MP told Times of Malta.

While some, particularly Joe Giglio, argued that the party and its MPs should have more vocally backed Borg, others argued that any reaction to the article was uncalled for.

“Had Cassar still been in the party, I’d have understood. But he no longer is and isn’t even backing the PN,” another MP said.

“What are we going to do, stay ‘expressing solidarity’ whenever an opinion writer criticises one of us?”