Heat and tepidity at MLP conference

The Malta Labour Party conference that begins today has been preceded by some of the strangest comments from the independent media. It has been suggested that Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici is seriously threatening to split the party. And it has been argued that, if the MLP had elected a new leader after the last election, the party leadership would be in a less awkward position than it is today when presenting the delegates and the grassroots with a proposal to change the party's EU policy.

I think both these arguments obscure something important about the MLP today. They suggest that the leadership's problem at this conference is how to avoid too much heat. But the real problem is whether this conference will begin the process of heating up the core MLP vote in time for the elections of the European parliament.

Let us begin with the kind of threat that KMB poses to the leadership. True, he did once say that there could be a drain away from the party but he has since denied he threatened to split. Whatever the original statement did mean, however, the most telling statement he has made is this: if his motion at this conference - to make it party policy to seek to renegotiate the accession treaty - fails, he is prepared to propose it again, year after year. That is not the statement of a man thinking of engineering a party split.

It is, however, the statement of a man who knows two things: that he almost certainly will not win the conference vote but that he enjoys widespread sympathy among large swathes of grassroots MLP voters; possibly their majority, to go by the guesses of some party politicians. (By "grassroots" I mean any instinctive MLP voter, including those who were gutted by the anti-membership stance and had to hold their noses to vote PN.)

The MLP leadership would be in this position, at this point, even if it had changed leader after the general election. Under someone like George Abela, its position would have been more immediately awkward (whatever good it might have done later) since I am told that he would have insisted that the party affirms EU membership as good for the country and for the people the MLP seeks to represent.

But even a new leader who instead chose the face-saving formula of "accepting the new reality (though partnership was better)" would have been plagued by Alfred Sant's legacy. In the spring of 2000, the party had adopted as an emblem a No Entry sign surrounded by EU stars. It was waved at mass meetings. Jimmy Magro appeared on TV wearing a printed T-shirt version of it.

The emblem met the two purposes for which it was designed. First, it enabled the party to tell middle-of-the-road voters that it wanted to get as close as possible to the EU; while the logo itself told (without uttering a damning quotable word) the grassroots that the battle was about keeping the EU away from Malta.

Second, by indoctrinating much of the grassroots in this way, Dr Sant secured his position as leader from a possible takeover, which was in the air at the time. Very fresh in the party's mind then was the lesson that the grassroots take time to adapt to a U-turn on policy - the party was having some trouble mobilising the grassroots to turn out for the local council elections. (In 2000 the MLP turnout was about 70 per cent of its core vote; in 2002 it was about 85 per cent.)

Any coup against Dr Sant then would have been based on changing the EU policy. But since the grassroots could not be relied on to come round to the party in time for a (possibly snap) general election, would-be plotters were discouraged. The last practical chance to change the MLP's EU policy before the general election probably disappeared in 2000.

Today, a new leader would not face the quiet resentment that Dr Sant faces. But he, like the actual MLP today, would still face the possibility that the grassroots might not mobilise as effectively as possible for the European parliament elections - not yet having come round to accept the U-turn, and with implacable KMB slowing down the process.

Under the (unlikely) nightmare scenario, the MLP would lose a seat it would have won had some of its core vote not stayed away on the day. But there are other, more possible, even if minor, evils.

One is that MLP candidates with a Eurosceptic profile will be favoured over others. Another is that mainstream candidates might think they have to overstate their Euroscepticism in order to pick up votes. Both possibilities hamper the party's ability to speak to mainstream voters.

One final point. The idea that the conference that begins today (which legitimises the change in EU policy and paves the way for the choice of EP election-candidates) is a test for Dr Sant is not untrue, but it is misleading. It really is a test for the two new deputy leaders.

Charles Mangion and Michael Falzon will be more damaged than Dr Sant by a dull EP election performance - their claims to make a difference will be dampened. Ears, then, all pricked up to listen whether their rhetoric can rise to capture what they are for, and not just what negative impact they want to minimise.