Editorial

Labour's foreign affairs shadow minister, Leo Brincat, displayed signs of political amnesia when he ran to the rescue of party leader Alfred Sant in a damage control exercise taking the form of a written clarification published in this newspaper on December 20. Even the heading of his contribution, Solidarity But Not A Strategic Alliance, must have raised many an eyebrow to readers who have been following the industrial relations and political scene for the past 40 years or so.

Five days later, Mr Brincat followed up his contribution with another, published in The Sunday Times, which clearly exposed the thinking in the minds of the Labour Party's strategists! Headed Strategic Thinking, it gives an indication of the strong attempt the party will be making, ahead of the next local council elections, to recover the ground lost since they extended blind support to the General Workers' Union's street protests over the budget measures.

What appears to be greatly preoccupying Labour is the fallout from the collapse of the talks over the Sea Malta privatisation and the now famous declaration by Dr Sant that if they were returned to power in the next general election, they would give the GWU a privileged treatment. Whatever Dr Sant wanted to mean by it, there could hardly have been any doubt about its interpretation in the minds of those who heard it at the time, and in the circumstances, it was made.

Minds automatically flew to times past and recalled how the trade unions - other than the GWU - and non-GWU members at the Drydocks and in so many other places of work were treated under the Labour administration of Dom Mintoff, particularly when the GWU was, to use Mr Brincat's own words, in a strategic alliance (!) with the Labour government.

The tenor of Mr Brincat's first contribution may even indirectly suggest that Labour under Dr Sant is eager to distance itself from its past. Indeed, it almost sounds apologetic. The heading sums up the feeling succinctly. And, says Mr Brincat, when the MLP leader recently spoke of a privileged relationship between the MLP and the GWU, he was merely referring to the parallel lines and complementarity that exist between political parties and trade unions of the same bent, a leftist orientation.

Again, Dr Sant may well have had this in mind, but does he or Mr Brincat believe for one moment that this is what the people really understood by his "privileged treatment" declaration? The articulation of the declaration, first by Dr Sant himself, and now by Mr Brincat, has come a bit late in the day to cancel the impression left in the minds of those who heard it when it was first made. If anything, it now sounds as another clear case of backtracking.

This is exactly what happened to Tony Zarb, the GWU general secretary, when in the heat of the moment during a street protest he was quoted as saying by the media (except the union's own!) that unless the government was prepared to go to the negotiating table, they would topple it. Apart from other considerations, the nuance of the language used by the GWU chief was different to that used by a former Nationalist Party leader, as quoted by Mr Brincat.

Mr Zarb too has clarified what he really meant to say, but for their own good and that of the country, should not politicians and trade unionists pay greater attention to the declarations they make in public? Mr Brincat also showed political amnesia when he referred to free and fair elections in his first contribution, but that is another story!