Gżira mayor Conrad Borg Manché resigned from the Labour Party on Saturday, insisting it is no longer a socialist party that fights for the workers.

The popular and outspoken 42-year-old who has clashed with his party on a number of environmental issues, will stay on as an independent mayor.

In his resignation letter, seen by Times of Malta, he told the party executive this was “probably the most important decision” of his life.

He said he had no option but to quit because his party disrespected him and his locality’s people over many issues for too long and he feels it does not represent socialist values anymore.

“Everyone has their limits and now I’ve had enough. I have been waiting in vain for too long,” he wrote in a five-page resignation letter.

“The party is no longer a socialist party that fights for workers. That is why I had joined the party in the first place, and so this resignation is only natural.

“I only feel disappointed because of genuine Labour Party members who trusted me and supported me, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart.”

His resignation came just hours ahead of the culmination of the party’s annual general conference, which has been going on for the past week and is set to come to a close today.

Borg Manché, who has served as Gżira mayor for eight years, had a major fallout with the Labour Party last March, when he accused the party of betraying its socialist principles over plans to turn part of a public garden into a petrol station. 

He had lambasted party president Ramona Attard for fronting a court case on behalf of the Lands Authority to push the Gżira council to accept plans to move a petrol station to the site of a public garden, decreasing the garden in size by almost 1,000 square metres. 

The council eventually won the court battle to stop the relocation of the fuel station in late April. In his letter yesterday, Borg Manché said his actions on the issue “did not go down well with those who wanted to push private interests at the cost of ruining a public garden”.

“Attitudes of people in high positions changed overnight and I stopped feeling welcome,” he said.

He told his party he only learned about the fuel pump plans coincidentally on the day of his oath of office in 2019, when he went to the Planning Authority to fight against another irregularity in his locality. That is when he realised there was also the fuel pump hearing going on, he said.

Borg Manché's resignation came just hours ahead of the culmination of the party’s annual general conference, which has been going on for the past week and is set to come to a close today.

Disgust over Sofia vote

He said the sight of his party’s MPs voting against a public inquiry over the death of Jean Paul Sofia in parliament this summer was the event that made him consider his position “most profoundly”.

“For me that vote clearly showed the workers’ party lost the scope for which it was founded more than 100 years ago,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

He said he was also hurt to be elbowed out of his position as Ambjent Malta chair despite having worked wholeheartedly in it for three years and was the source for his family’s income.

But for Borg Manché, who is a newly graduated lawyer, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the new lawyers’ warrants issue. Like him, more than 100 other lawyers are still waiting to be granted a warrant to be able to practice their profession, he told the PL executive.

Borg Manché’s resignation comes six months after another pro-environment mayor – Xagħra’s Christian Zammit – resigned from the council and from all positions in the Labour Party, saying he was “getting out of the way”. 

Zammit, an outspoken advocate on Gozo’s environment, had told Times of Malta in an interview last year of a scaremongering campaign by the construction industry to “eliminate” him and led to his dismal electoral show as a Labour Party general election candidate.

Last May, Borg Manché had addressed the most recent nationwide environmental protest – themed ‘Xebbajtuna’ (We’re fed up). Two other Labour mayors were present for that protest – Qala’s Pawlu Buttigieg and Qormi’s Josef Masini Vento – both of whom have been actively campaigning to safeguard the environment in their localities.

Borg Manché addressing a protest on Manoel Island in 2016. Photo: Mark Zammit Cordina

In his resignation letter, Borg Manché recalled, among other things, how in 2016 he fought for the public access of Manoel Island’s foreshore which had been illegally closed off for the public for 16 years and how he safeguarded the interests of people and their locality with all his strength.

“I am proud to say I took my oath of office seriously and respected it in all of my decisions with great diligence,” he said.