Debono Grech endorses Coleiro Preca, urges return of Labour veterans

Labour Party leadership contender Marie Louise Coleiro Preca was yesterday endorsed by the party's most senior parliamentarian, Joe Debono Grech.

Speaking at a breakfast meeting with the Brigata Laburista delegates, Mr Debono Grech, a former Labour minister who has been a member of the party for 50 years, praised Mrs Coleiro Preca for her sterling work within the party.

"Together, we made a lot of sacrifices to strengthen the party and eventually lead it to victory in 1971," he said.

Both Mr Debono Grech and Mrs Coleiro Preca said they believed the brigade still held a meaningful place within the party.

The brigade was set up in 1959 because young people then were being indoctrinated in favour of the foreigner, Mr Debono Grech said.

The Labour government, he said, got rid of the foreigners without bloodshed and although the PN accused Labour of violence, it was Labourites who really suffered violence.

His father, for example, was transferred 61 times in his government job. This kind of violence was still being suffered by Labourites to this very day, he claimed.

And was it not a form of violence to have threatened people who voted Labour with mortal sin?

"The Nationalists accuse us of violence. What violence? It is true there were fights but when has the worker ever won anything without a fight?"

Mr Debono Grech recalled that Labour had introduced compulsory education up to the age of 14 and later 16 in spite of great opposition from the Nationalists, who had also opposed university education to all.

Labour, he said, failed to win the last general election because it was too honest and the Maltese, like the rest of the people around the world, had become too egoistic.

These were reasons why there was still a need for the brigade. It should be given a chance to evolve and modernise but should have all the necessary space and support even in the media.

Mr Debono Grech noted that the party's history was being forgotten. He warned that if it this trend continued, the party would never grow.

Veterans had to be brought back into the party's fold and be invited to work with organisations such as the brigade.

Mrs Coleiro Preca said she believed the brigade, with whom she had worked very closely during her nine-year stint as party secretary general, still had a role to play within the party and it was not really being promoted as it should be.

The brigade carried out a lot of educational and interesting work with children, organised talks on child problems and instilled in them social democratic values so that they may grow up close to the party and understand it.

Mrs Coleiro Preca said that while she believed in the need to continuously upgrade and reform the brigade, it should be strengthened to continue being of service to the party. It deserved the party's support which had declined and she promised that, if elected leader, she would provide it with the most relevant resources.

The breakfast meeting included a talk by psychotherapist Charles Cassar on what the role of the brigade could be in modern times.