For the past decade and a half, I can honestly say there have been few, if any occasions for me to express gratitude of any kind to the Maltese Labour Party.  Nonetheless, the Labour Party has had an impact on me politically, socially and culturally but not in the way its supporters and leaders might wish.

For me, that impact has been wholly negative, despite the ‘odd’ positive occurrence.

However, at this specific moment in time, I am grateful to the Partit Laburista and to its many leaders (seen and unseen) for lifting my spirits and those of many around me.  The party has indeed changed the country’s current demeanour and certainly in a positive way.

Before going any further, I feel it is necessary to pause, take a deep and satisfying breath (even many of them) and, as it were, smell the coffee.  Following the recent EU and local elections, the air feels a little lighter, as does the public mood and those dark clouds that have appeared, have done so in deserved and appropriate places. 

In short, the results of the elections have inspired hope and even a degree of expectation.  Change is potentially back on the agenda.

After too many years of relentless negative and dispiriting news coupled with dire warnings of an imminent demise of brand Malta, the Maltese public (in its many versions) has come to the rescue even if that is but an interim rescue.

A majority of the voting population have (at least for now) rejected the leadership, behaviour and deformed values of the current Labour Party and its leading ‘lights’. Even if that rejection is immediately accompanied by many ifs, buts and maybes, it remains overwhelming good news for Malta, even for those who currently do not accept this.

Even as the journey before us is hazy and unclear, even as we await the backlash from Labour’s wounded ‘leadership’, and even as we ponder what the underlying dynamic of the recent vote is, we can be sure of one overarching and positive reality.

As a result of its unending plunder of this land, its resources and its people, the current Maltese Labour Party has shot itself in both feet (and most likely elsewhere) to the point that it can at best, simply limp on in what could turn out to be an aimless search for salvation.

For this, we must say grazzi ħafna [thank you very much], Labour. 

Unintentionally and against the dominant run of play, you have managed to offer the country a possible lifeline. Your insatiable greed, plotting and scheming, your lack of anything resembling professionalism and integrity and your hysterical manipulation of populism have forced this public rejection. 

Despite the bravado, fake smiles and thinly veiled threats, that rejection stands. – the message is indeed clear.

That fulsome rejection has been well and truly earned.  Your need and desire to defend and protect the arch criminals in your ranks at all levels has led to this.  The reprehensible but typical behaviour surrounding the current court case on the Vitals inquiry is evidence if any further were needed.

What follows on from these elections is unclear, but a new dispensation is now on offer, for those willing to engage. We should indeed be grateful to this edition of the PL (and its malignant network) for pursuing its toxic agenda to the point where the public were goaded into responding.

The damage done to Malta to date is immense and will take decades to undo and then repair but had the PL not ‘won’ this spectacular ‘victory’, the damage would have been even greater and the future even darker again. 

The challenges we face remain the same as they were before the elections, everything has changed but nothing has changed.  We possess deeply compromised and rotten executive, captured state institutions, a castrated police force, compliant state media, a desecrated environment, maldevelopment and so much more. 

Our democracy remains under threat, our legal system is under attack from the state, and we are subject to direct threats from our most powerful politicians. 

No longer able to claim a popular mandate for its agenda, the PL is facing a crisis of its own making and for this we should be appropriately grateful.  Its ‘leadership’ is in turmoil and in danger of devouring itself – another cause for hope and optimism.

We can begin to cautiously look forward again… and with a renewed spring in our step.