The Labour Party will have no problem to overcome the hurdle put up by the Nationalist Party in the form of a no confidence motion that will be debated in Parliament on Monday. Its huge majority in the House will see it triumph handsomely, also because ministers who have publicly and privately urged Minister Konrad Mizzi to resign will not vote against the government.

This is perhaps why the PN should have lowered its expectations and, instead of demanding the resignation of the whole government, it should have simply called for the removal of the anointed one, Joseph Muscat’s special friend. If it had been so, it would have offered a bigger temptation to some MPs on the Labour side to at least abstain in the vote.

Given that people like Evarist Bartolo and Godfrey Farrugia – not to mention Alfred Sant, but he doesn’t have a vote in the House – have said they would have resigned if they had been in Konrad Mizzi’s shoes, then there would have been an outside chance that they would have put money where their mouth is.

Any abstention or, better, vote against Konrad Mizzi would have been a huge victory for the PN. As it is now, what the PN has achieved is a 13-hour marathon debate at the end of which things will remain the same.

But there is no doubt that the Konrad Mizzi scandal has put the Labour Party against the ropes and, like cornered rats, they are now lashing out at anything and anyone who dares to speak up against them, including their own.

In doing so, they are once again rekindling the bad memories of the past. To have someone like Chris Cardona coming up with a statement such as the one he made on Sunday – that “we will come after you with an axe if you hit us with a sword” – is a throwback to the 1980s, and an instigation to violence. Such language, and the ovation he was given when those words were uttered, is a disgrace.

Does Cardona mean to go against Alfred Sant, Evarist Bartolo and Godfrey Farrugia with an axe now that they have spoken up against Konrad Mizzi?

One other point reminiscent of the 1980s is the muzzle that Alfred Grixti, a former member of the PL executive and a former Labour mayor, wants to put on everyone. He does not want anyone from the Labour Party to express their views on Konrad Mizzi’s position – if they go against the wishes of the leader. Now that Joseph Muscat has made his position clear, this should not be questioned and everyone should shut up, Grixti said.

Muzzling people is a thing of the past, unless one lives in North Korea. Or is Grixti advocating that we should become like North Korea?

Saying that the supreme leader’s position should not be questioned is a threat to what we all hold dear – democracy and freedom of expression.