It is an inevitability, given its smug arrogance and majority, that the Government will plough on with the establishment of its market-stall for Maltese passports regardless of the distasteful smell that pervades the whole sordid affair. Joseph Muscat's apologists, of which there are legion, cite the thirty million (already revised to fifteen in some quarters) that will be raked in as justification for this, as if in the greater scheme of things, this is not a paltry amount.
They also point at the States and Canada and other places, where residence for investment programmes are in place without, of course, properly defining their terms and telling us how these schemes actually work. They certainly do not work by having some marketing wonk shoving the papers across to his mate and having them rubber-stamped, which I get the impression is what's going to happen here.
It's revealing how even in those countries where self-respect has long been sacrificed on the altar of fiscal expediency, there remain a few upstanding souls who decry the way they've been flogging their passports to any Tom Dick or Harry, or however those names are transcribed in Turkemistani, to invent a language. This "Only Fools & Horses" mucking about with our national identity document is raising quite a few eyebrows, here and in Europe.
One reason for the elevation of the upper facial hair is the small point that the people who are going to receive a shiny new red booklet (unless we turn it green like the good old days) are going to remain snugly ensconced in a cloak of invisibility. We're not going to know our fellow citizens, they will form an elite band who can swan around the world waving their EU passport at all and sundry but we mere mortals won't get to know who they are. Secrecy and below-the-line dealings such as these only strengthen the impression, already quite strong, that this whole thing is not kosher at all, that it is simply a mechanism for friends of friends to be welcomed into the bosom of the family.
We're asked to dispel these misgivings because the firm that has been bestowed with exclusivity in marketing the scheme will be carrying out due diligence exercises and ensuring that only the most salubrious and deserving applicants will be given Maltese citizenship. I have no idea who these chaps are, for all I know they are the most rigorous of appliers of standards that are astronomically high, but I trust I'll be forgiven if I let scepticism overtake naivety in assessing whether the marketing department will hold sway over the people in their compliance department.
While I was writing this I spotted a news item that said that the Labour Party had lavished fulsome praise on the Prime Minister for his achievements in Brussels. At first I thought it was an old piece that popped up as sometimes happen when the vagaries of the 'Net operate, praising Dr Gonzi for one of his many achievements, but it was today's news. What a relief, I thought, the Labour Party is praising its own leader for something or other, while there was I, thinking that they would criticise him.
What they were praising Muscat for was his achievement in getting immigration discussed, though how they offset the reality from their own fantasy that he actually achieved something concrete, given the way Merkel firmly put him in his place, was not covered in the article I read.
It occurs to me that there is a touch of serendipity here.
If, as the Government has assured us repeatedly, the people to whom a Maltese passport will be sold by Henley & Partners will have been vetted (by Henley & Partners) to ensure that they are fit and proper to be granted the boon of Maltese citizenship, and thus avoid the ire of the EU, who has in interest in the matter, why shouldn't Henley & Partners also be charged with, on a pro bono basis, vetting the credentials of each and every immigrant that fetches up on our shores, with a view to granting the deserving amongst them citizenship?
After all, if the people with €650K to spare are going to have to be vetted to ensure that their filthy lucre will not be the only consideration, why shouldn't the people without even 1c to spare be granted the same level of consideration? A penniless immigrant plucked from the sea is as valid a human being, and as deserving of a passport, as a bloated plutocrat scrambling for the sanctuary of Europe, is this not the case?
Or are immigrants actually children of a lesser god for Joseph Muscat?