Labour Can do a Better Job

The Malta Independent on Sunday



So I was damn right on the referendum result wasn`t I`

Just to refresh your memory here is what I wrote here 2 weeks ago before the referendum vote:

`The government will interpret the results as the percentage of the Yes vote of the total valid votes cast. On this basis there should be no doubt that once the Opposition has chosen to split its votes on three possibilities rather than concentrate on a single No option, the Yes votes would outnumber the No votes.

The opposition will interpret the result as the percentage of the Yes votes of the total number of entitled voters being the number of voters on the registers less the number of those deceased till the day before the referendum.

So it is quite possible that the Yes vote will get a majority on the basis of the first interpretation but a minority on the basis of the second interpretation which would award the majority to the three option votes of the No camp.

In such a situation we will obviously hear arguments whether it is right to include non-voters within the ranks of the No camp once there is no-way of knowing whether, like myself, the voter abstained purposely or through sheer inability or nonchalance.`

And that`s exactly where we stand to day. The best proof that the YES did not win the referendum is the fact that had they really won in an incontestable way, the election campaign would have been a mere celebratory song and dance, which obviously it is not.

`The way the referendum was modelled was indeed meant to play games with democracy.` As it is impossible to quantify how many of those abstaining or cancelling their vote were actually meaning to adhere to Labour`s directives,` the most generous interpretation the YES camp could give to the referendum result is that it is inconclusive. But their arguing that they won simply because the Yes votes outnumbered the No votes is surely playing games with democracy.

The way the referendum was modelled was indeed meant to play games with democracy.` I have listed four basic reasons why I considered the referendum unworthy of my participation therein, thus not validating the democratic process it was betraying whilst pretending to prove it. Anybody arguing that my meaningful abstention is not a protest against the government Yes campaign, does not even know how to spell democracy. Thankfully Labour has seen wisdom in proposing a new referendum which addresses the 4 basic weaknesses of the last one:

It will be a real choice between Partnership and Membership, not just a Yes or No to one of the options. It will be held fairly in a manner to be agreed through real consultations with the opposition and allowing fair resources to both sides. It will be held by a government that will have constitutional authority to execute the people`s choice and not one at the end of its term in office. It will be a truly binding national consultation and not a mere partisan tool in the throes of an election campaign.

But the government`s bend of playing games with democracy seems to have interminable limits. Take Min. Joe Borg atrocious declaration that the EU will refuse to deal with Alfred Sant as Prime Minister. Take the PN`s billboard that Alfred Sant is `perikoluz`.

Such declaration normally come from despot dictators who believe that they and they alone represent the State and the people have no right to choose their leaders. Anybody who disagrees with the L`etat c`est moi pretender would be considered perikoluz.

Such thinking should have no place in free Malta pretending to have the democratic credentials to join the EU.` Even the concept that this is our only real chance to join the EU and that on 12th April we are actually voting again Yes or No to EU membership, `exposes deep deficit with democracy. `So when over the next weeks you will hear the Prime Minister et al moaning that EU membership is a now or never affair, `and that we will risk losing Lm81 million, `you should just smile wryly and pity them at their inability to negotiate properly.`

On 12th April we are choosing the party best suited to manage our affairs across the whole spectrum of government, of which foreign policy and EU relations is merely one component. Sixteen years of nearly uninterrupted power has rendered the present PN lot fatigued, arrogant, compromised and incapable of offering true solutions to the huge financial, environmental and social deficits they created.` Their single all-purpose solution through EU-membership is a mirage exposing their weakness not their strength.

This country desperately needs a change.` It needs new ideas and new energies to devise realistic solutions to our problems which brought us to economic stagnation and mountains of debt and debris.` There should be no doubt that whether eventually we would choose Partnership or Membership, Labour can do a better job of it, if anything by making it clear, and using it as a lever in the negotiations, that our Constitution and our neutrality is not for changing, and that whatever we agree with the EU has to be in full compliance with our Constitution.

So when over the next weeks you will hear the Prime Minister et al moaning that EU membership is a now or never affair, `and that we will risk losing Lm81 million, `you should just smile wryly and pity them at their inability to negotiate properly.` Remember that by choosing Labour as your next government you will have a real choice. Even if you still prefer membership it will be a membership that respects our constitution and that is set against a certain background and not, as presently, against a Constitution of the EU that is still being drafted.

But remember that under all circumstances Labour can do a better job.