In the past days, the Nationalist Party organized a national convention on the theme IdeaMalta. Perhaps, it would have been better had it been termed IdeaPN, because the first thing that the Nationalist Party needs to have is a crystal clear vision of its internal ideology. Instead of clearing the air, this Convention has managed to obfuscate still further the Party's future. It was a Convention aimed at turning 2014 into the cultural maelstrom of the Party. Instead, it has continued to emphasize the dour condition that this party is experiencing having lost its centre of gravity, together with the never ending refrain that Dr. Simon Busuttil is a great leader.

I had no problem to speak about Dr Simon Busuttil's good qualities after his election as leader of the PN Party. But after nearly two years at the helm of the Party, having lawyers at the Convention attest to his leadership skills is only exposing Dr Busuttil to ridicule. It will definitely increase the perception that the Nationalist Party is controlled by an inner clique. For once, I was reminded of the pre-1987 chants, when as a teenager, I used to hear the ranting slogan by Labour Party supporters, shouting ad nauseam, "Il-Karmenu irriduh" (we want Karmenu). Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici was the MLP leader who was unorthodoxly imposed by Dom Mintoff on the party and became erstwhile Prime Minister of the Maltese nation. 

Politics is an issue about personality. Personality is the factor that can make all the difference. This holds to the leader of a party but is also squarely important to the personality of a party. Through this convention, the PN wanted to project a new identity for Malta and this is why it called this political rally, a convention, held at a 5-star hotel and called it IdeaMalta. The reported news about this convention is that the selected speakers were more interested in the formation of new identity for the PN rather than Malta. Perhaps, it would have been better to have called it, IdeaPN.

Most speakers shared the same views about what type of qualities they wished for the Nationalist Party. The ideas put forth ranged from a sort of neo-liberal to a Marxists vision but no speaker was asked to intervene to explore the values of Christian or Conservative ideals. The latter values are no longer of any consequence to the Party. The message circulating during this Convention is very clear. If you are a Christian, and worse still a Roman Catholic, there is no space for you in the Partit Nazzjonalista. You are now the enemy number one of the Nationalist Party. 

Perceiving that Catholic influence in Malta is waning, the Nationalist Party strategists are concluding that it does not need to be identified and personified with Malta's Catholicism. They think that Roman Catholics are now a defunct and a defeated lot lead by paedophile priests. Myopically, the Party is thinking that it does not need their votes. This is going to increase the perception that the Nationalists supported Catholicism for its own political ends and not because it believed in the Gospels as a force of political change.

Unfortunately, the Nationalist Party is repeating the same mistake committed by both the UK's Conservatives and Labourites.  Labour in the UK attacked its strong Roman Catholic base and the Conservatives fired tirades on their Anglican and Protestant electorate. The result is that their political base is silently fleeing away thus guaranteeing the success of the UKIP Party. Despite the fact that Cameron made his Conservative party pro-gay and lesbian, it still has no guarantee of winning next year's general election. Cameron's only trump card for a successful electoral victory is to play the anti-EU tune.   

Ironically those present at the IdeaMalta Convention were reminded that homosexuality is something natural. With the same argument paedophilia, which is a subclass of homosexuality (and like homosexuality is a nineteenth-century medical creation) should also be labeled natural. The truth is, and here I agree with the Marxist Jacques Foucault, sexuality is a cultural construct but this debate goes beyond the scope of my present discussion. 

The PN wanted to give to this conference a populist touch, placing the party beyond the sphere of the Catholic Religion, thinking that in so doing, it will be reaching a broader audience. I am afraid, that the PN is now risking being associated with political trash. Besides the glory-chasing opportunists, the PN is now joining the hoary international brigade of anti-Catholic sentiment. 

Instead of working to win over the disgruntled voters and all those who are dissatisfied with Labour and its lobbyists, the PN has embarked on the road to a far worse political defeat in a few years' time.  Why? The answer is very simple. The grass roots of the party are interpreting this Convention as follows: if you're gay, you're great; if you're African, the Party will find you a job in Brussels, but if you're Catholic or Christian, the party is now telling you go to hell. If the organizers have thought that by adopting such a strategy, they are doing a service to multiculturalism, the opposite has been achieved. The core of the Party will now start questioning multiculturalism. Norman Lowell must have opened a good bottle of champagne in celebration.

The PN is erring in thinking that by taking up a liberal position, it will succeed in attracting the army of Labour voters who are cross about this Government's policies. The Labour core is conservative and these are ones the most hurt by Labour's new policies.

For this reason, I could not but admire the maverick Labour media, which took the opportunity to hammer down these ideological collisions to open new paths within Labour for disgruntled Catholic voters, who till now have voted for the PN.

In other words, while Labour can assure itself of the vote of the Gay lobby (and this irrespective of which stand the Nationalists take) the Nationalist's pursuits will result in further political self-harm. Irrespective of the Nationalist's stand, the Gay Lobby will continue favouring Labour. The political damage inflicted by a Gay Lobby to the PN did not result from a position of ideology but from cliques that LGBTQ formed within the party to guarantee for themselves and partners proficuous offices and positions to the exclusion of many other honest and hard-working citizens.

With a Machiavellian ability, Dr. Joseph Muscat is going to succeed in keeping under his wing not only the Gay Lobby and the disgruntled working class voters but he will be attracting even Catholic voters whose last links with the Nationalist Party are being barbarically severed.

If this Convention was aimed at presenting the Nationalist Party with a re-branded political vision of personal freedom, the impression it has left on me is that it is a party sounding even more 'whacko' than before. The PN has simply lost the plot.