Although there are certain political leaders who never won an election – the CNi leader for one – it does not make sense for any political party to avoid setting out to win an election. This is not opportunism but real politik.
The Labour Party owes an electoral victory to its supporters who have been in the political wilderness for close to 20 years – were one to exclude the brief 22-month period that Labour spent in power between 1996-1998.
Many people I know are now convinced that the best way to defend our neutrality is not through constitutional wrangling but simply by having a Labour government at the helm of the country.
For this reason I cannot but disapprove of the comments that former premier Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici recently passed when being interviewed in Malta Today.
If he was reported faithfully, he said that what should concern us is not winning elections but our beliefs and principles, adding that he is only interested in policies and beliefs.
No matter how genuine Dr Mifsud Bonnici might be in the stand he takes – which I do not in the least doubt – we can ill afford to embrace the views of a splinter group that are perceived as representing a permanent electoral liability. Rather than hitting out at the Nationalists, they seem far more concerned in rubbishing certain elements of the Labour Party, yours truly included. Which is something that I have long decided to take in my stride, without any pangs of conscience at all.
No wonder delegates of certain electoral districts have written to the said former PM asking him to refrain from inflicting any further political damage on the Labour Party.
In the Labour Parliamentary Group’s vote there is no opportunism, but a streak of political realism which we embraced in our near absolute majority. The EU Constitutional Treaty has nothing to do with principles or beliefs. It is how we put it into practice that matters. If, between now and election time, the Nationalists take any decisions that will seriously undermine our neutrality we will merely reverse the process, in the same way that we withdrew from the Partnership for Peace – a move which, incidentally, this government has now got round to accepting, so much so that it no longer features on their political agenda.
The CNi people have been misleading people so much that they even tried to make political capital out of what they perceived as an enforced harmonisation of workers’ leave entitlement and public holidays right across the whole EU.
Anybody who bothers to read the Constitution’s text will find that there is nothing binding in the relevant clause but merely an undertaking whereby one shall (not will) merely endeavour to achieve this aim.
Had the constitutional treaty denied us of the right of a veto on foreign policy, defence, security and taxation issues I would have opposed it strongly.
As things stand I fully support the Parliamentary Group’s position that we should vote YES, with clearly spelt out reservations that will bind our future actions when in government.
It is the line that colleagues of mine and I have been lobbying for during the past months.
I am confident that, at the end of the day, reason and common sense will prevail. Even though we still have to go through the whole process of further assembly meetings and national executive meetings as well as the extraordinary general conference itself.
The middle class vote
It is sad indeed that the people who are advocating that Labour should take the extremist road ahead are the same people who hob-nobbed with the UK Independence Party – an extremist party whose candidates in their majority lost their electoral deposits during the recent British elections.
They are also the same people who never showed any interest in attracting the middle class vote towards Labour in their own time, preferring to merely go on preaching to the converted without bothering to widen their spread and influence.
This is the “battle” going on right now between the mainstream of the Labour Party and certain fringe elements that do not know better.
When they quote at random certain European leaders to justify their stand against the European Constitutional Treaty they try to mislead the electorate by failing to make the point that certain Federalists’ quotes are simply aspirations and not a policy enshrined in the Constitution itself.
In the meetings that I regularly have with constituents of different political views I can tell that middle class voters feel cheated by the Nationalists in the sense that they feel they have been taken for granted far too long. We have to go on proving through our actions and statements that it is not true – as the PN spin doctors try to imply – that these people have nowhere else to go.
As far as we are concerned, it is not simply a matter of explaining our policies better and communicating with more professionalism but also of conveying the idea that we are on their side and share their concerns.
When I say so, I do not want to imply that we should disregard the wishes and aspirations of die-hard Labourites. After all we owe them our support since they are and have always been the backbone of the party.
But we must convince them that just by rallying their vote, we will simply remain a strong opposition party.
I am confident that the party leadership has long recovered the MLP’s lost souls.
Our challenge is no longer that of merely asking Labourites to return “home” but also that of making far more people identify with us in the first place.
Many people are middle class not simply because society categorises them so but in the majority of cases they are middle class by self-definition.
Let us not hamper their wishes and aspirations for an improved quality of life and a more stable and secure environment in which to bring up their families.
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Leo Brincat is the opposition spokesman for foreign affairs and IT