EU Reporter, a Brussels based website, has reported that allegations that had been made about Chris Fearne and his aide Carmen Ciantar were a “fundamental forgery”. And yet Fearne’s own party - Labour - didn’t bother to issue a statement in his defence.  It didn’t defend Fearne when those nefarious allegations were first published.  It still hasn’t.

“I never took a cent,” Joseph Muscat said at the Parliamentary Accounts Committee. “Just as they lied about me, I figured they might be lying about them too”.

Muscat knows about lying.  Ask Chris Fearne. Somebody lied about Fearne for telling the truth.  Fearne told the NAO what Muscat didn’t. Fearne had the nerve to testify truthfully and honestly. He informed the Auditor General of Muscat’s deceit in the hospitals concession. 

Fearne said a lot when he wouldn’t exclude Joseph Muscat was behind his frame up.

Thanks to Fearne we know a little of what really happened with the fraudulent hospitals deal.   Konrad Mizzi didn’t even bother meeting the Auditor General. Keith Schembri just gave “curt replies”. Kurt Farrugia “failed to reply to any of the queries submitted”. Joseph Muscat concealed information, withheld key documents, including the notorious MOU, and lied - blatantly and repeatedly. The NAO didn’t believe him - “the NAO maintains an element of reservation regarding that stated by the PM (Muscat)”.

Muscat incriminated his own colleagues.  He shifted his guilt onto them.  He falsely claimed the whole cabinet approved his stinking deals.  He humiliated them. He was “not spoilt for choice” with regard to cabinet talent, he declared at the PAC Fearne, on the other hand, testified truthfully - “none of these agreements were brought to the attention of cabinet” and “cabinet was not aware of the implication” of the 100 million Steward clause. For his efforts Fearne became the target of a coordinated campaign with false allegations published in obscure Ukrainian websites, Pakistani third rate newspapers  and in EU Reporter.

So do you believe Muscat or Fearne? The choice is easy. But not for Labour.  Labour struggles with the easiest of choices - and then makes the wrong one. It’s obvious who’s telling the truth.  But Labour values loyalty to its devious former leader over support for its current deputy.

Labour chooses fealty to Muscat over defending the truth. It takes the side of lies and secrecy over truth and honesty - every time. It’s still terrified of displeasing Muscat, even though he lied through his teeth.  Even when he pins the blame on them, Labour still tacitly condones his lies.  They cannot bring themselves to stand up to him, to denounce his falsehoods, to expose him for the fraud that he is. Those members of cabinet who Muscat is lying about could team up and denounce him and his lies. Instead they cower in fear. They lend his lies credibility through their gutless silence or worse, with their vocal support at the PAC.

That same terror of Muscat’s malice stopped them uttering a single word of support for Fearne when he faced trumped up accusations. That and unease about displeasing Fearne’s rival, Robert Abela.

Fearne should have been prime minister.  But Labour was too scared of Muscat. Fearne lost his leadership bid because he promised the rule of law, because he declared he’d scrap Muscat’s rotten strategies - including the passport-for-cash scheme. Fearne lost because he promised justice, the perennial enemy of Muscat.

Fearne could have won hands down if he’d promised continuity, if he guaranteed to cover up for Muscat. That was a path he wouldn’t take. When he saw his victory slip through his fingers, he foolishly resorted to pandering to the grassroots.  His pathetic RIPN dig, came across as hollow, because it was.  It was driven by desperation as he watched the continuity candidate overtake him, pushed over the line by Muscat and his meddling wife.

Fearne knew Abela would never steer the ship of state to safety. He knew he would plough it further into the whirlpool of greed, lies and secrecy. He knew his gutlessness would destroy the party.

Fearne’s defeat reverberates to the present.  That defeat was Muscat’s victory and everything he represents - unrestrained greed wedded with a vicious streak of vengeance. It’s a victory of falsity over fact.

Fearne’s quiet revulsion of Muscat’s lies and deceit put him on a collision course with Muscat, Muscat’s wife and the party. The party voted to dump Fearne in preference for a young lawyer with no experience of high office. Labour betrayed its own deputy leader and deputy prime minister because Muscat willed it.

Fearne found few allies amongst Labour’s ranks - just 41% voted for him. His victory would have given the country’s rule of law a far better chance. But even those who backed Fearne then, have been cowed into silence - by Muscat’s grand standing and vicious threats and Abela’s failure to condemn the hit-job on his deputy. Abela knew the allegations incriminating Fearne were fabricated.  He knew they were false. Instead of doing the right thing and condemning them as outright lies, he lent them credibility through his appeal that “the magistrate should be allowed to work in serenity”.

The whole party followed Abela’s lead.  Abela signaled what he expected the party to do - to let Fearne stew, let him fight the villainy alone. The party obeyed. Not a single word of support for their own deputy leader. Weeks have passed. Abela showed more support for Love Island’s participants than for his deputy.

It wasn’t so for Konrad Mizzi.  They all voted in parliament to defend him, despite his villainy. It wasn’t so for Rosianne Cutajar. How they defended her even as she humiliated the party and the country. It wasn’t so for Justyne Caruana who was reinstated to Cabinet. Or for Owen Bonnici found guilty of human rights breaches. 

Labour’s failure to defend Fearne is a grave unforgivable affront. Labour is in a very dark place when it cannot bring itself to defend the truth, even when it comes from its own deputy leader, even now that the very site that published those allegations has refuted them.

Labour is the home of demagoguery where fear of the Leader and the former Leader stymies all action in favour of what’s right.  Labour should take a long hard look at itself and see the withered corpse it has become.  It is shedding honest hard-working party members - Desmond Zammit Marmara, Conrad Borg Manche’, Christian Zammit - because it embraces iniquity over righteousness.

Fearne may have made mistakes. He may be arrogant and smug. But if Labour shuns truth-tellers in order to protect Muscat and please Abela, the rest of the country shouldn’t.