Credos and lost opportunities

Whatever is right with the MLP draft policy document on the party and Malta's role in the European Union, launched over the weekend, demonstrates more than anything else what was wrong with the policy stance that led to the party's defeat in the April general election. The reality that the MLP now recognises was staring it in the eye before the election. The European Union, warts and all, was that reality then as it is now.

This being a democracy it was always possible that a majority of the electorate would opt for membership of the union. If they did, the minority had to live with that decision.

Unless, that is, it was a matter of conscience, of fundamental principle. In that case the losing side could never accept a contrary outcome, much less commit itself to make it work. It would have to fight and fight and fight again to save the cause, to try to win majority approval to reverse the first decision.

Labour strategy, so fiercely shaped by the leadership, made non-membership a creed. We believe that membership would be bad, would be worse than bad, would be disastrous. We believe that for every drop of membership rain that falls, a painful thorn grows.

Believing in non-membership as a religion was the only position that could justify the all-out anti-membership declarations. That strategy, that credo, led to a rejection of the democratic referendum mechanism that should apply to a single-point issue that is not a creed and turns not on fundamental principle.

Today, Labour accepts the decision of a majority vote in favour of membership, whatever that will bring. The draft policy correctly proposes a role of working within - and not fomenting revolution against - the EU. Very correctly too it premises that proposal on "the best interests of Malta and Gozo". Acceptance of membership means, quite simply, that non-membership was not a credo after all. No fundamental principle was involved.

So why did not perennial democratic reality lead to a strategy of subjecting the decision on membership to the referendum mechanism, campaigning tooth-and-nail for a no result, and moving on to implementing the referendum majority decision whichever way it went? Some, though not from within the bowels of the party, had suggested that well before the sobering experience of the double trouncing in the March referendum and April general election.

The draft policy document, in a nutshell, proposes that Labour implements exactly that same decision. It has to do so in opposition, whereas it could have given itself the opportunity to do so as a government. Now it can only propose, it is up to the Nationalist government to dispose. The latter would be wise to take on board proposals included in the document and aimed at keeping the workings of membership a live issue subject to the scrutiny of Parliament.

It would, for instance, make much more sense to have a standing committee of parliament dedicated to EU Affairs, rather than one covering both EU as well as foreign matters. If, in the context of the belated recognition of reality, there is to be a bi-partisan focus on the EU, the sharper that is in our highest institution, the better for Malta.

Presenting the draft policy document to the media over the weekend the Labour leader smoothly detached membership from the pre-election credo stance. It was not an option, he said, not to respect the people's decision and work for Malta to leave the EU at the first opportunity. Nor was it an option to accept whatever the Nationalist Party had agreed in the accession talks. (Not easy to unravel how that differs from the essence of the motion Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici's will be pro-posing to the MLP general conference in November.)

The option Labour will be adopting, said Dr Sant, is to counter the disadvantages of membership while seeking to get the most of the advantages membership would bring about and ensuring that such benefits are enjoyed by all.

The trouble with packaging options in glib words is that glibness does not wash well. How can a party in opposition counter the disadvantages of membership? How can it ensure that benefits are enjoyed by all? If a party is in government it would be in a position at least to try in both regards. Sadly, the wrong strategy on how to decide on the EU denied the MLP that possibility. Hopefully, a more correct strategy now will remedy that in 2008.