There’s no denying it: quality of life in Malta is in freefall. And this is one consequence of the biggest change Labour has brought about since its ascent to power in 2013: the huge increase in population.

More than 100,000 have been added to our already extremely densely populated small islands. This was a policy that was never promised, never discussed; a cheap labour policy that unashamedly exploits migrants and short-changes Maltese workers. And all this with huge effects on our quality of life.

In 2019, Labour imported no fewer than 21,000 foreigners, the population of Birkirkara in 12 months. It is the same party which gnashed its teeth pre-2004 about EU citizens, Sicilians they used to say, who would be ‘invading’ Malta and coming to ‘take our work’ and buy property here with EU membership.

Now they don’t import EU citizens, because it’s not skills transfer and intelligent migration that Labour’s after. With Labour’s cheap labour policy, Malta doesn’t pay the kind of wages that would attract EU citizens. It is workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and other poor non-EU countries that Labour gets to Malta to be unashamedly treated as modern-day slaves.

Unlike any other Maltese government before them, Labour have given up on growing our economy based on Maltese workers’ and businesses’ skills and effort.

Instead of smart immigration and a skills transfer towards the Maltese, we have a brain drain, as can be seen in our crucial health and security sectors where our best people are being driven abroad, never to return to the hellholes that Labour has rendered our islands, not only Malta, but also Gozo, even Comino.

Labour did have a roadmap, it’s true, a secret one actually, but that was only about the pillage of all the resources of the state and laundering the proceeds in places like Panama.

Otherwise, there was no plan as to the effect of a 20,000 a year increase in population on our environment, transport, schools and education, hospitals, the integration of all people living on these islands, our language, liveability, the quality of life.

More than two-thirds of our young people see no future, no decent prospects for them in Malta- Eddie Aquilina

That’s why surveys show that no less than 70 per cent of young people just want to leave.

This is no joke: more than two-thirds of our young people see no future, no decent prospects for them in Malta. Youth is the sector of our population that should be most interested in the future, in the environment they’ll enjoy or suffer in 50, 60 years’ time.

But they can see that Labour has abandoned all basic environmental ideas, except for cheap greenwashing, and made Malta a permanent building site full of six-level holes-in-the-air waiting to be filled by ever more exploitable workers.

There was no plan for transport, except for a lavish pocket-filling exercise before every election to pay lip-service to a mass transit system we sorely need, but actually implementing a 50-year-old policy of ever more cars, building flyovers whose effect is to play snakes and ladders with traffic jams on the map of Malta.

What about our language, a sine qua non for integration and inclusion, generally and in our education system too?

There’s no need for migrants to learn at least rudimentary Maltese. Those who do learn Maltese of their own free will are real heroes, and there are some.

How many migrants will we get in the next five, 10 years? If quality of life is in freefall with 100,000 immigrants, what will it be with double or triple that amount?

It’s a question we need answered publicly and in dialogue, not in secret meetings where Labour auctions Malta to the highest bidder.

Otherwise, the only prospect that will remain for our children and children’s children will be the departures lounge of our airport and a one-way ticket to somewhere decent, where quality of life is a value to be cherished, not plunder to be auctioned by corrupt politicians.