A broad agreement has formed around the Labour MEP, Alex Agius Saliba (and his colleague, Daniel Attard): it’s said that, by not voting for Roberta Metsola as president of the European Parliament, he displayed political immaturity and petty partisanship. Really? The criticism is targeting the wrong man and the wrong issue. 

Agius Saliba gave a list of reasons to justify his abstention. Like most laundry lists, it includes reasons that are weak or dubious. But he only needed one good reason and he gave it: he said that to vote for Metsola was blatantly inconsistent with Labour’s electoral campaign against her. 

Labour didn’t criticise Metsola simply on policy grounds or because she belongs to a different party. Robert Abela and his candidates attacked her on moral grounds. They said she puts her personal interests ahead of the nation’s; she’s a warmonger who has worked against Malta’s national interest. 

In short, no honest, reasonable person could declare her a selfish, treacherous warmonger in June and then argue she should be president of the European Parliament in July.

Abela now says that it was in Malta’s interest to vote for Metsola’s second term. He declares it’s always in Malta’s interest to vote for a Maltese. But this makes no sense. When you’ve all but called someone a traitor, how can it be in the national interest to vote for her?

It does not add up. That is, unless you never believed a word you said, despite levelling some of the gravest charges one could against a politician. If, on the contrary, you truly believed what you said, then you are being irresponsible to urge a vote for someone you believe to be so wicked. 

It’s this position – voting for someone who you say harms the country – that should be strongly criticised. It’s a position that can only be taken by the cynical or the feckless. It’s to Agius Saliba’s credit that he recognises this and insists he was obliged to be consistent.

If he is to be criticised, it is not on his vote. It’s on the substance of what he says about Metsola. You don’t have to regard her as selfless or blameless to see that Labour’s campaign against her has plenty of spin but little evidence to back it. 

You can take issue with her early actions after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel; but, taken as a whole, she did not betray the position of the parliament she’s bound to represent. As EP president she has behaved with the propriety we’d expect from any national speaker of parliament. And, to go by the vote tally for her second term as president, the overwhelming number of MEPs agree. 

There was plenty to criticise in Labour’s personalised campaign against her but the time to show its hollowness was when it really mattered, during the campaign itself. What we should be focused on now is not the MEP seeking to be consistent. It’s the prime minister who shrugs off the serious accusations he made.

You don’t have to regard Roberta Metsola as selfless or blameless to see that Labour’s campaign against her has plenty of spin but little evidence to back it- Ranier Fsadni

And, because everyone is glaring at the wrong man, it looks like Abela will get away with it. No one is asking him whether he still believes that Metsola acted against the national interest for personal gain. No one asks him to explain why he’s ready to vote someone so unfit for office.

The result? Abela would like to take credit for transcending his political differences with Metsola. He doesn’t take back a single word he said about her, while flaunting his support as patriotism. 

But that position only makes sense if the differences are policy-based. It’s a foolish position when the core question concerns loyalty.

Not challenging Abela has four insidious consequences. First, it embraces a perverse idea of patriotism and the national interest: that a Maltese candidate for high office should be automatically supported, irrespective of whether he or she is qualified. 

Second, to embrace such a principle is to accept Abela’s case against Metsola, and her fellow PN MEP, David Casa: that they were unpatriotic to object and campaign against certain Maltese nominees to European offices. But Metsola and Casa have always argued, rightly, that the principle of “my co-national right or wrong” is ethically mistaken. It betrays their responsibility as MEPs to vote for someone they know (or think they know) is unfit for purpose.

Third, it also embraces an understanding of the national interest that is short-term at best and foolish at worst. Voting for a Maltese nominee unquestioningly, even if he or she is clearly unqualified, or disqualified, is not in the national interest. 

Someone who is unfit will damage Malta’s reputation. They could be a scandal waiting to happen. Or their incompetence could lead to Malta missing opportunities to defend its interests adequately. 

Fourth, it ends up targeting the wrong man on the wrong issue. If Agius Saliba is to be criticised, it’s not because he wanted his vote to be consistent with his criticism of Metsola. It’s on the factual basis of that criticism. 

Most of all, we should be concerned about focusing on the wrong man. Our preoccupation should be that the man in charge, Abela, has behaved like either a thorough cynic or a fool.