Robert Abela spoke about the “courage to change” at a Labour event which was overshadowed by rumours of reintegrating Joseph Muscat back into the party.
“You cannot change unless you have the courage to face things. You can desire change, but if courage fails you then you will change nothing and you will only dream of changing things,” Abela told a Labour crowd.
Held at Labour headquarters on Friday evening, the event celebrated the discovery of new historic documents dating back to the start of the Labour Party 100 years ago.
Abela’s speech focused on what he said was the party’s vocation to bring about change.
“Being conservative is easy, because it means just keeping things as they are or changing to preserve the status quo. The Labour Party was created to bring about radical change, so it never found an easy path,” he said.
Among those attending the event was Abela’s predecessor Joseph Muscat, who on Friday acknowledged that he is contemplating running for MEP in June’s European Parliament elections.
Muscat served as prime minister between 2013 and 2020 and led Labour to two record general election victories before being forced to resign in disgrace under the shadow of anti-corruption protests.
He has since restyled himself as a business consultant, working for clients such as developers’ lobby chief Michael Stivala, Dragonara casino tycoon Johann Schembri and a Swiss firm linked to the failed hospital privatisation deal deemed fraudulent by a court.
Abela has made it clear he will not stand in the way of a Muscat MEP candidacy and on Friday evening launched a scathing attack on a magistrate probing the hospitals' deal.
In the past month, he has also made overtures to Rosianne Cutajar and Justyne Caruana, two Labour MPs first elected under Muscat who were forced out following separate misappropriation scandals.
During his speech on Friday, Abela said Labour was always about the little guy.
“We continue to work for that principle every day. We invest in people, we help the poor and strengthen the middle class we have created,” he said.
Abela said that people’s priorities changed as they moved up the socio-economic ladder “and we need to be there to attend to those aspirations”.