Big contractors and businessmen were getting too close to the Labour Party, former deputy leader Anġlu Farrugia reveals in a no-holds-barred interview in The Sunday Times.

Dr Farrugia says he fears the PL was changing its core values from a party which mainly represents the working class to one which felt too comfortable with big businessmen, adding he knows contractors who were close with individuals involved in Labour’s finances.

It is Dr Farrugia’s first interview following his surprise forced resignation last December, just days before the start of the electoral campaign.

In combative mode, Dr Farrugia shoots down Joseph Muscat’s claim that he was forced to resign over comments he made about a magistrate following a court case.

He claims he had even been informed that Dr Muscat had planned to keep him out of the deputy Prime Minister’s post if elected to government.

He even insists he was kept out of Labour’s decision-making process, which led to his faux pas on the water rates during his Xarabank debate with Simon Busuttil.

“Unfortunately, Anġlu Farrugia was so loyal to Joseph Muscat that he gave him total leeway and didn’t realise he was being stabbed in the back. This is like calling your best friend over and then shooting him in cold blood. It was political murder.”

Watch excerpts of the interview with Herman Grech by clicking the link above. Read the entire interview in The Sunday Times.