This is Jay talking

There are some rules in civilised countries which are basic. They are uniformly observed and the failure to live by them provokes the kind of enduring furore that Labour's handling of the 1981 election results caused in this country.

To be fair though, it is praiseworthy - albeit normal behaviour in a democracy - for the Labour Party now to fully recognise the PN's mandate to govern. Its parliamentary and popular majority is miniscule but Joseph Muscat and his team have never for a moment placed the legitimacy of the government in any doubt.

For sure, their parliamentary opposition is entirely directed towards bringing it down at the first available opportunity - but to do that is another, acceptable, rule of a modern state.

The latest strategy in Labour's bid to achieve its aims is fairly clear: Identifying potentially divisive issues. This is not too difficult given the tough times we are facing, but, critically, they must have the potential to split the unity of the PN's parliamentary group.

A parliamentary motion to discuss the subject so identified is proposed and, with the trap set, a wait-and-see approach is taken. If all goes according to plan someone or other from government's backbench may rise to the bait and regale the opposition with a victorious vote.

It happened first with the proposed motion on the St John's Co-Cathedral museum extension and the mutterings and rumblings that were emerging from the backbench made it apparent (at least to observers like myself) that the government was not guaranteed to win the day. Labour looked forward to the debate with keen anticipation, sensing blood, but was denied its first trophy when the Prime Minister withdrew the proposed project.

Lawrence Gonzi emerged undefeated but his counter-strategy is hardly a course of action he can consistently pursue. Undeterred, and not entirely dissatisfied with the outcome of things, Labour upped the ante and in loud and indignant tones demanded a motion to urgently discuss illegal immigration.

On this too, Muscat must have reckoned that there was some PN backbencher out there who would play his game. Indeed, as Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando rose to say his piece (in The Times) it felt as though the Leader of the Opposition was reeling him in.

What Pullicino Orlando said is beside the point. The point isn't even that his utterances suggest he will go against the party whip. Indeed, I would be the first to defend the right of anyone in politics to heed the deepest burnings of his conscience over party discipline.

The point is that his posturing over St John's and his suggested treatment of illegal immigrants goes against the basic values of the party he chose to represent in the general election: For all its enormous imperfections, the creation of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority represents our desire to have independent studies and planners replace pure political discretion in the physical construction of our society.

The motion on St John's should have ended with a unanimous vote in favour of determining whether or not it was possible to attempt the project at all. Then, if an affirmative was forthcoming from the geologists and other experts, a decision would be taken as to whether it was still desirable.

That did not happen; it was torpedoed politically. How is that, in essence, different to the situation we had when the Minister of Works was Lorry Sant?

For all the huge problems, not least of health and disease control, that having an immigrant population represents, it is also an opportunity to apply our commitment to human dignity. Suggesting we tow humans from their detention in Malta and send them out to sea into the sunny horizon is facile and cheap.

It is also inconsistent with the PN's social vision as Paul Borg Olivier and Ranier Fsadni, no less, one the general secretary of the party and the other the president of its think-tank, AZAD, told him.

In a subsequent contribution, however, Pullicino Orlando said he would not 'deign' to reply to his critics because even the most naïve observer could figure out their agenda.

He failed on both counts to act like a true member of the Nationalist Party and I find it truly difficult to believe that his conscience had anything to do with it. Had he not contested the PN ticket he would have obtained just a tiny fraction of the votes he did, so he sits in Parliament as a member of the party first and foremost. If he cannot behave like one, he is a greater threat to the country's stability than Muscat.

The quicker Pullicino Orlando understands that, the better.