It is indeed mind-boggling that at a moment in time when Malta is fast sinking into a social and economic quagmire, there should still be those few on the Left of Maltese politics who are seemingly more interested in firing pot-shots at an Opposition that has only been able to muster a meagre 18 months in power in the last 18 years, and so cannot in any way be considered responsible for the current chaos. That such tenure had been so short-lived, there again was due only to this same small band of merry men who must have their own personal reasons for always keeping the Labour camp on tenterhooks.
It is not a new scenario. Not anywhere in the world where the Left is or has been a creditable political force at national level. It seems to be in the nature of most left-wing parties to be in perpetual internal turmoil, most probably because they are often the refuge of some of the more interesting, more intellectually challenging characters on the political stage. They are a motley crowd, always willing to change and to seek improvement, in complete contrast to the happy jacks of conservative boredom where unity is assured by hook and by crook, as they are gently massaged by the tentacles of a complacent media.
When a leader finally pops up within the elastic confines of a left-wing party, the Crystal Night knives do not come out just in the opposite camp. When Harold Wilson became Prime Minister of Britain in the 1960s he was advised to beware of the “enemy” on the opposite side of the House, to which he quickly replied, “That is only the Opposition, the enemy is right behind me.”
Malta’s Labour Party has not lacked any of these peculiar characteristics ever since its inception in the early 1920s. More so in the post-war period, when the calm handling and traditional base of Paul Boffa were brusquely replaced by the dynamism, no-punches-pulled tactics of Dom Mintoff. But both of them had their backers as well as their dammers in the same party.
Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici was a genuine, well-meaning, albeit stopgap, solution to the leadership conundrum after Mintoff chose to retire of his own free will. That he also somehow managed to retain some of the invisible strings of power in his pockets was also an open secret.
On each and every occasion of leadership change, though, the real decision-makers were the party delegates who in their hundreds represent the vast national network of Labour grassroots in the Maltese Islands. The same process occurred in 1992 on the day Alfred Sant took over from Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici after a finely-contested election primarily with former minister Lino Spiteri. That many years later there had to be – in Cospicua, of all places – hiccups about that same election was all part of this on-going saga of loveable Labour characters always happy to do the Twist for the media. The whole matter was laid to rest in a symbolic cloud of dust that tempts to rise, to gradually lesser degrees, whenever someone else seeks to do a bit of political foot-stomping.
Such cheap thrills are manifold, most of them coming from ex-Labour stalwarts who either dread the idea of being bundled out into the recycle bin for have-beens, or seem to have a personal agenda. How else can one explain this obsession with Labour Party issues of policy rather than with the problems of an otherwise disheartened, demoralised nation? They do not seem to realise that firing personal salvos at the party leadership is tantamount to bombarding the party faithful who, through thick and thin, have always been there and will always be there, whoever is leading the party.
Why? Because unlike the political opportunists, their hangers-on and the calculating, ambitious pretenders on the silver front, the other ranks have long been taught the wisdom of loyalty, unity and the good and the bad in politics. They are the nameless ones, the committee members, men and women of all ages, at local and district levels, who do all the dirty work before the good MP or prospective MP, in his Sunday best, shows up to deliver the ideological goodies.
When the cheap thrills are sought and the arrows fired, they only hit these rows and rows of brave, determined people seeking to maintain the positive thrust that their party has been able to achieve on three successive occasions in the last two years following the European Union debacle. After all, they elect their leadership. They decide who goes and who stays. They make you and they break you. You can throw as much mud as you can at any left-wing party, but you certainly cannot underestimate its democratic credentials. The thrills have lately been turned into frills as a section of the media gets inky diarrhoea just from watching the spectacle of a lone lady taking on these very same people who would otherwise have given her deference and support had she continued to insist on and promote her ideas within the party. Those who, like her, prefer to opt out do so only of their own accord. The media may find her good for a timely circus act, very much like the Continuing Story of Billy the Kid in drag, but she and others like her can obviously no longer talk in “Labour” terms when what they really have done is abandon those very same big-hearted souls who welcomed them into the Labour fold.
This European Constitution farce, for example, is a case in point. Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, enthusiastically appointed a lifetime MLP delegate by none other than his die-hard fellow delegates themselves, has rightly chosen to propose his ideas on the issue from within. He has every right to do so. In any party, it takes courage to go against the party leadership line, but then the good lawyer is fully aware of the loyalty and legitimacy of the general conference of party delegates. His is no cheap thrill, but a standpoint that deserves to be heard and debated.
The gimmicky element of MLP2 simply infuriates the party faithful who are supposedly expected to swarm to it in their multitudes, like long-suffering bees to political honey. Instead, what they get is a so-called movement that has a problem with signatories even when it comes to a simple press release to protest against an editorial decision to have its one-and-the-same president cum secretary cum PRO cum member cum spokesperson axed from the pages of a Labour-inclined newspaper bought and supported by those very thousands of men and women who are certainly not amused by her antics. Of course, it is claimed it is the “Labour leadership again” that has had her removed. But every action has a reaction. I dare say that Labour grassroots have had enough of this melodrama on their own free stage. You hit our leaders, you hit us, is the new maxim. For those who want to play the political game, the Labour Party is big enough for them. But no one is bigger than the party. Those who prefer to reach for their bazooka on the outside, may find that the wall of loyal resistance is much stronger than they ever thought.