This week, a weak Bernard Grech, and the rest of the Nationalist MPs, walked out of Parliament refusing to debate a government motion which condemned the arrogant behaviour of PN MP Karol Aquilina in the Parliamentary Chamber and in support of Speaker of the House, Anglu Farrugia, who was the target of Aquilina's vicious attack.

In marching out of Parliament, a defeated man, Bernard Grech, left no doubt who called the shots within the Nationalist Party. Addressing the press, in his doorstep comment, after abdicating his Parliamentary duties, a humiliated Grech was watched closely by a jubilant Karol Aquilina, literally breathing down his neck. Karol was all smiles. He knew that he had had the upper hand over Grech and his PN 'colleagues'. Karol won; his colleagues lost.

Aquilina walked into Parliament, knowing that he had called the shots within his party. He walked out of Parliament knowing that he was now the undisputed de facto leader of the Nationalist Party. The anointment of Karol Aquilina as the true de facto leader of the Nationalist Party had just happened, and Malta witnessed it in real time.

The lead up to Karol's anointment as de facto leader of his party, despite never contesting the leadership election, was messy, to say the least.

It all started the week before when government Whip, Naomi Cachia, presented a motion on our behalf condemning Karol Aquilina's obscene behaviour within the Parliamentary Chamber. A few days before that, the MP, who made it to Parliament in "zona cesarini" and by the skin of his teeth, lashed out at Speaker Anglu Farrugia and made some very disparaging comments in his regard. I will not repeat them.  His colleagues looked on in silence, heads hanging low.

It was a dark moment in Malta's parliamentary history. Our Parliamentary Chambers have seen the most passionate debates on matters of extraordinary importance in Malta's history. Few were the moments when a member of the house stooped so low, Karol Aquilina hit rock bottom.

The Speaker, a man of undisputed integrity yet approachable and experienced in Parliamentary affairs, yet affable handled the situation as only he knows how to: maturely and with bounds of objectivity.

But as Government MPs, we could not let the issue go to bed. We had a duty to stand up for what was right, and a motion was filed condemning Aquilina's shameful behaviour whilst declaring our unwavering support for the Speaker of the House. 

Our decision took the Nationalist Party by surprise. 

For a few days, leaks from the PN Parliamentary Group gave a bleak picture of an Opposition in turmoil, confused and unable to decide the way forward. Until Karol, rumours have it, cracked the whip, and his colleagues obliged.

As I stood up to deliver my speech during the Parliamentary debate last Monday, I could not help but draw comparisons between Aquilina's unacceptable behaviour and the integrity, passion and compassion with which former Nationalist MPs used to address the House: Their Excellencies Guido de Marco and Ugo Mifsud Bonnici came to mind. Never would these two estimable gentlemen act the way that Aquilina did.

But the Government's motion was also a strong declaration against the politics of hatred demonstrated by most extremist elements within the Nationalist Party. I was at the receiving end of their politics of hatred when lawyer Jason Azzopardi, Karol Aquilina's best friend, made grave allegations about me. I stood up to him and proved him wrong. My colleagues, Carmelo (Abela), Clint (Camilleri) and Silvio (Schembri) too have been victims of this politics of hatred by the person who pointed fingers at me and accused me of things that I never did.

Jason Azzopardi is not a member of the House of Representatives. He was voted out at the last general election. But the Nationalist Party gives him unlimited airtime on its media channels to spew hatred against anything and anyone Labour. Azzopardi is a best friend of Karol Aquilina, and this makes Azzopardi a very important and influential man within his party because Aquilina is the undisputed de facto leader of the PN. 

Bernard Grech and his Nationalist MPs had an excellent opportunity to distance themselves from Karol's shameful way of doing politics and denounce him. I know of several Nationalist MPs who have privately spoken against Aquilina's antics. I thought that in Parliament, they would stand up to be counted. I was wrong. They stood up to walk out of the Chamber, defeated and humiliated by one of their own.

They knew that by walking out of Parliament, they would be anointing Aquilina as the true, de facto, leader of their party. But in those crucial moments, when the real men and women of the political class put aside their personal ambitions and do what is right, the Nationalist MPs chose their political survival over political decency. And Karol was a happy man.

Taking to social media, many Nationalist party supporters condemned the abdication of responsibility by their elected representatives. Others spoke privately - I know of a couple who did. But they got nowhere. Their MPs looked helpless, defeated, lost, confused and aware that already in a deep hole, of its own doing, the Nationalist Party dug deeper on that fateful evening of last Monday when the people of Malta watched in hope for a strong message of change within the PN and what they got was more of the same.