On April 28, 1958, the Labour Party and its lapdog the General Workers’ Union called a general strike. The reason for this was Britain’s plans to cut down on defence expenses, which spelt very bad news for dockyard workers.
Of course, there was more to it than that. Dom Mintoff’s master plan to see Malta integrated with the UK had turned out to be a damp squib. The visionary Salvatur had failed to see the signs and, as other colonies were fast seeking independence from a spent British Empire, he did the very opposite.
The 1956 Suez crisis, happening exactly as Mintoff was campaigning for his ridiculous notion of Integration, marked the end of the British Empire. As the talks on integration dragged on, getting nowhere, Mintoff wouldn’t see the new reality. So he resigned as prime minister and applied the scorched earth policy.
In Labour’s numerous rewritings of history, the 1958 strike is described as the Labour movement standing up to Britain and its dreaded commandos. True, some Labour youths did throw stones at the commandos before running away.
Nothing remotely heroic happened that day, nothing we don’t usually associate with your average Labour mob – they attacked buses, barricaded some streets and burnt police stations. And yes, some intelligent chaps in Marsa tried to burn a British vessel by pouring diesel on its deck, only to realise it was water.
You can read all about these ‘historic events’ in Labour MEP candidate Alfred Sant’s book 28 ta’ April 1958. He had to name the book that way because that is all it was, just a date.
Those Labour criminals have ever since been hailed as heroes in Labour and GWU mythology. In his book, Sant speaks of “judicial intimidation” and goes on to list in detail the names of those who were arrested and jailed, to show his “respect and honour”.
Sounds familiar?
Skip a few decades. In 1984, Mintoff’s successor Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici is designate leader entrusted with the task of making Church schools ‘free of charge’.
After a rousing meeting with Mifsud Bonnici, dockyard workers on open trucks proceeded to the Church Curia opposite the police headquarters in Floriana and wreaked havoc. Forget any arrests this time around; you don’t get arrested for political violence if you’re Labour under Labour.
And what did Mifsud Bonnici call them: the aristocracy of the workers, creating a new brigade to flank his soldiers of steel. Now doesn’t this sound familiar too?
Skip another decade, and a bunch of Żejtun thugs are arraigned in court and accused of beating up Nationalists at the 1987 election. They arrived at the law courts in Mercedes cars, dressed in formal evening wear with red buttonhole carnations. They were welcomed as heroes by the Labour crowd that soon after proceeded to wreck the law courts.
Present in the court that day were Labour bully par excellence Lorry Sant and our future EU commissioner Karmenu Vella. Skip a few more decades, and now there’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his disgraced star candidate Cyrus Engerer.
Gay rights campaigner Engerer didn’t burn any buses or smash some bust of the Madonna at the Curia. He found some compromising photos and, in an act of pure homophobia, sent those photos to his ex-lover’s employers.
And guess what Muscat calls him: a victim of persecution, a Labour soldier of steel. So much has this ultra-liberal Labour Party progressed since those Mintoffian years.
People like Engerer find their natural home in Labour, a party whose incredible electoral victory last year was built on the collaboration of Nationalist Party rejects like him. Muscat welcomed Engerer to the Labour fold with open arms, knowing the serious criminal charge he was facing.
For Muscat, the court case was just a private matter. He said: “People are judged not on single personal decisions, including highly emotional situations such as these, but on their track record.”
With no moral compass, Muscat is bound to end up with pie in his face as he did with Engerer
The Nationalist Party slammed Muscat for his immaturity over his handling of Engerer. Actually, it has more to do with values. What Muscat calls “personal decisions” taken by Engerer have everything to do with politics because politics is primarily based on values and how these affect the decisions by people serving in a public office. It is a point the Prime Minister misses again and again, to everyone’s chagrin.
That is why Muscat had no problem embracing Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, the former Nationalist MP who had an acrimonious battle over the Mistra scandal with Muscat’s predecessor Alfred Sant.
Pullicino Orlando recently lost a libel case he instituted against Sant. The court said Sant’s opinion and judgement were based on his understanding of how matters had evolved. Yet Pullicino Orlando still enjoys Muscat’s confidence.
Lack of values also explains why Muscat has no qualms with the Energy Minister’s wife’s astronomical salary and the way she was appointed, telling us to look out for her achievements instead. He also had no qualms in keeping the Developers’ Association president Sandro Chetcuti on the Building Regulation Board after he too received a suspended jail sentence.
And Muscat had no qualms in keeping within the Labour fold Żurrieq mayor Ignatius Farrugia after he was found guilty of harassing columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
With no moral compass, Muscat is bound to end up with pie in his face as he did with Engerer.
That man should have never been allowed to stand as an MEP candidate until his name was cleared. But Labour sees political exegencies first. Engerer draws the gay vote, that same gay vote that must now feel terribly betrayed.
Maybe the coordinator of the Malta Gay Rights Movement Gabi Calleja should take a break from calling the likes of me homophobic (I couldn’t care less about gays, Ms Calleja), and instead try to undo the terrible damage Engerer has done to her cause, whatever cause that may be.
The Electoral Commission should consider billing Engerer or the rich Labour Party that still supports him for the cost of reprinting the ballot sheets.
He should have never been on that sheet, but then, decency and standards in public life do not feature high in Labour vocabulary.
It appears that it would also be too much to ask the average Labour voter to ignore Engerer’s name on the ballot sheet. Can’t ask for something too intellectually challenging from that terribly large portion of the electorate that would actually vote Labour, can we? So the taxpayer must foot the bill for Labour’s deficiencies.
The wide difference between Labour and Nationalist values could not be starker, and nothing makes that divide more accentuated than the Engerer case.
The hearts of the two parties beat differently; they play altogether different strings. The dividing line between the two is called decency, political standards and values. The cultural divide is as wide as it was in 1958.
We have always associated Labour with violence, intimidation and bullying. Engerer’s actions were not much different; he took his bullying into cyberspace, which is why he is happy and welcome in his new home. It is the only party that throughout its inglorious history has embraced criminals and made them heroes.
If the outcome of the court case was serious enough for Engerer to pull out of the electoral race, then it should be enough ground to have him kicked out of the party altogether. But in Labour’s amoral world, it doesn’t work that way. He’s instead hailed as a hero, a victim of justice properly served, which means that all he needs to do is to lie low until he gets hoisted back on us, like nothing has happened.
A lot has happened these last days, a lot that tells us that Engerer and his smirk will be back to haunt us again, sooner than we think.