Principles and U-turns

On February 11 and 12, 1956, the Maltese electorate was called to cast their vote in a referendum on the proposal put forward by the then Labour government led by Dom Mintoff that Malta should be integrated with the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

The result gave a resounding yes to the proposal - 74.83 per cent of votes cast voted in favour while 22.21 per cent voted against. The referendum was characterised by two important aspects. The Nationalist Party led by Gorg Borg Olivier ordered a boycott of the referendum while the government allowed voters to be accompanied into the polling booth by a "trusted friend" who could help them cast their vote.

Those who did not vote for one reason or another amounted to 40.87 per cent of eligible voters while the number of "trusted friends" who accompanied voters amounted to 5,488 involving 14,461 voters in all. By any standards, the referendum on integration with Britain was vitiated from the start but, of course, legally the yes vote carried the day.

All things being equal, were Dr Borg Olivier and his Nationalist Party expected to respect the will of the majority, however obtained, and start working for the success of Malta as an integral part of the United Kingdom? This is a question that becomes pertinent in the light of the present debate going on within the Malta Labour Party regarding Malta's membership of the EU come May 1, 2004. My strong feeling is that Dr Borg Olivier would have become even more determined to fight for Malta's independence from Britain as for him to change course would have meant a betrayal of principles he held so strongly.

The fact that the majority had spoken did not make those principles any less valid and disposable. The essence of democracy is that, while the views of the majority are respected, the views of the minority continue to be aired and defended in the hope that one day they will become the views of the majority. These are the rules of the game. One can argue, of course, that Malta's independence was more a matter of principle than Malta's membership of the EU ever was. The MLP, particularly Alfred Sant himself, treated the whole issue as a matter of principle.

This is a charge which Alfred Mifsud wrote about quite often. If one puts forward arguments about the effects of EU membership on the lines of loss of national identity, loss of sovereignty and loss of freedom, no majority vote should make these aspects of membership palatable. But this is what the MLP would have us believe. In no way would I like to see the MLP changing course now, yet again.

I argued in fact in this paper that it would have been better for the MLP to have voted for the accession treaty in parliament at the beginning of this legislature as it would have given a clear message to one and all that Labour's policy of partnership was a mistaken one and, as such, was rejected by the majority who chose membership of the EU on the conditions negotiated by Eddie Fenech Adami. But Labour did no such thing. Partnership, Dr Sant keeps telling us, would have been a better option but to pursue it now would lead to great uncertainty.

And yet Dr Sant was prepared to accept the reigns of government, enter into negotiations not with 15 countries but with 24 countries and possibly more, with time frames set not by us but by others. The "uncertainty" claim sounds so hollow. The MLP is trying to convince us that their present stance is in the national interest but not all Labour spokesmen are singing from the same hymn sheet.

One of the main reasons cited by Leo Brincat (September 18) and repeated since is that if the MLP were to follow Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici's jihad "it would be playing straight into the hands of the Nationalist Party by offering them a plum opportunity to lambaste the MLP as a fundamendalist party that doesn't even know the rules of the game".

Here lies the truth. Dr Sant succeeded into hijacking his party behind his partnership dream in the hope that the policy would be a vehicle that would lead him to power but now power can only be achieved if the MLP joins the bandwagon of EU membership. While only a few months ago the MLP was not ashamed to rub shoulders with anti-EU fundamentalists wherever they came from, now the charge of fundamentalism is to be avoided at all costs.

The problem with the MLP, in common with many left wing parties all over Europe, is that the collapse of socialist ideologies left them without any clothes. They now spend their time begging, stealing and borrowing from other political movements in order to give themselves a reason for being.