When British deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was about to hold a meeting with former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff in 2002, the UK Foreign Office warned him: “Don’t touch that man!”
This episode emerges from a book written by two of Mr Mintoff’s lifelong friends: former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and former Dockyards chairman Sammy Meilaq.
Entitled Mintoff Għada (Mintoff Tomorrow), the book is expected to be published by the end of the month and deals with Mr Mintoff’s twilight political years, primarily his opposition to EU membership because of Malta’s neutrality.
According to a footnote in the as yet unpublished book, Mr Mintoff met Mr Prescott in London together with Dr Mifsud Bonnici as part of a series of meetings to raise awareness about Malta’s concerns on neutrality.
When the deputy Prime Minister shook hands with Mr Mintoff, he made the following remark: “Dom, do you know what the Foreign Office told me when I asked about the state of relations between the UK and Malta and that I was about to meet you? They said ‘Don’t touch that man!’ But I told them ‘How can I refuse him, he’s such an old friend of mine.’”
Before meeting Mr Prescott, Mr Mintoff and Dr Mifsud Bonnici held a two-hour meeting in Brussels with then European Commission President Romano Prodi on October 16.
Mr Prodi assured Mr Mintoff that the EU arrangements for Malta did not threaten the island’s foreign or economic policy.
“Mintoff made Malta’s case so persistently and determinedly, as he was well-known to do, that at one point Mr Prodi told him: ‘We’ve never met before but from what I read and heard about you, I imagined you just as you are behaving today!”
This did not throw Mr Mintoff off balance and he continued to write frequently to Mr Prodi and European Parliament president Pat Cox about the importance of Malta’s neutrality and his dissatisfaction with the EU.
The book is a compilation of all this correspondence, as well as minutes of meetings of Front Maltin Inqumu, the organisation led by Mr Mintoff during EU negotiations.
“No record of Mintoff’s life can be complete if it does not also include this account,” writes Dr Mifsud Bonnici, in the final chapter of the book which describes Mr Mintoff as a “prophet”. The arguments in the letters to Romano Prodi and Pat Cox “stand out for their elaboration and clarity”, he concludes.
“Mr Mintoff was a politician of action, more than one who wrote a great deal. In the last years of his work, however, he did not manage to garner strong enough support to defend the achievements that he managed to attain for the Maltese people during his long political career.
“Undoubtedly, he was conscious of this fact... Maybe that’s why he wrote more intensively during this period, so those who come next could understand the righteous path and follow it.”
In his foreword, Dr Mifsud Bonnici points out that many thought Mr Mintoff was in favour of EU membership because it was thanks to his bringing down of a Labour Government in 1998 that the Maltese Government could resume negotiations.
“This is not the case, and in the interest of historical accuracy, it is important that we know exactly how Mr Mintoff viewed the ties that our country should have had with the EU.”
Mr Mintoff’s death last year has prompted a series of books to be written about his long life which saw him lead the Labour Party from 1949 to 1984, including an uninterrupted and controversial reign as Prime Minister between 1971 and 1984.