There can only be one PN leader – trying to pander to ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ wings by having two deputy leaders gives the impression of a disunited approach. From left: Mario de Marco, Simon Busuttil and Beppe Fenech Adami. Photo: Jason Borg

As the dust settles on the European parliamentary elections, it is clear that the people of Malta delivered a two-fingered salute to the Opposition Nationalist Party, while for different reasons the people of Europe also stuck two fingers up at the European Union. Both gestures send clear, but different, messages.

The message to Brussels is easier to digest. Across Europe, in what has been described as “the peasants’ revolt”, voters rejected their governing parties (except, surprisingly, in Italy and to a lesser extent, Germany). They also sent a clear message that they were disillusioned with mainstream politics in Europe and the intrusiveness of the European Commission.

The morale-sapping recession of the last six years and the EU’s response to it, driven by a policy of deep austerity, has compounded a growing disconnection between leaders and led. The economic collapse has coincided with disintegration of trust in authority. People across the continent have voted in their millions against the status quo. They have made the case for radical reform in Europe abundantly clear – if only the Brussels establishment can be jolted out of its overweening complacency.

The new European Parliament will have a substantial representation from parties that reject the objectives of reconciliation which inspired the founding fathers of the Union.

More than a quarter of new MEPs have adopted instead the politics of xenophobia, chauvinism and isolationism.

Anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic parties won substantial votes in Denmark, France, the United Kingdom, Austria, The Netherlands and Hungary. In Greece, the fulcrum of the Eurozone debt crisis, the biggest winner was a left-wing anti-austerity party, while neo-Nazis attracted nearly 10 per cent of the vote.

European policymakers will be tempted to ignore, or gloss over, these results. They will argue – as some MEPs here already have – that because around 70 per cent of European parliamentarians will be from mainstream parties, the business of the Eurocracy can carry on regardless. This would be a mistake. Voters are telling European policymakers to step back and reassess their vision for Europe.

There is a major contrast in results and political dynamics between the big picture of 380 million voters in Europe (of whom only 43 per cent bothered to vote), and Malta (where 75 per cent of voters – the lowest ever turnout in Malta’s Euro-parliamentary elections, but still one of the highest in Europe – cast their votes). Our elections have bucked the European trends. Despite the showing of the racist anti-immigrant party, whose 7,000 votes are cause for dismay, the elections here had as much connection with European affairs as apples with oranges.

With only six Maltese MEPs out of 751 in the European Parliament, it was inevitable that Malta’s elections turned into a grand opinion poll on the performance of the government, and the Prime Minister specifically. It was a triumph for Labour, which not only retained its percentage of the vote but also an overwhelming 34,000 first-count vote majority over the Nationalist Party. That PN scraped through to obtain the sixth seat was small consolation.

As to Malta’s individual choice of MEPs, Alfred Sant – who has never allowed European star-dust to blind him to the limitations of the EU – will make an excellent representative at a time when a good dose of Euro-realism is needed. Marlene Mizzi and Roberta Metsola are just the kind of spunky, personable Maltese women who will insist on giving national parliaments a greater say in the EU’s affairs.

This was a dismal result for PN. And it is no good the party reacting – as some Nationalist apologists have done – by saying: “The people have spoken – the bastards.”

There are as many explanations for the Nationalist Party’s defeat as there are commentators. The crux of the issue is: what should Simon Busuttil do about it? This is not only a test of his leadership but also presents him with an opportunity to stamp his authority on the PN.

There is an immediate need for a ruthless reshuffle of the shadow Cabinet

How? Two main objectives stand out. First, Busuttil needs to sound and look like a Prime Minister-in-waiting. He has every opportunity to do that right away by exerting the smack of firm leadership over his party in a number of high profile ways.

First, the present style of triumvirate leadership must be jettisoned. There can only be one leader. Trying to pander to the two wings (‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’) by having two deputy leaders representing each of those wings simply gives the impression of a vapid, wish-washy, disunited approach – as the non-vote on civil unions demonstrated. Joseph Muscat’s strongest card today is the division within the Nationalist Party.

Second, there is an immediate need for a ruthless reshuffle of the shadow Cabinet. In a calculated move, he should ditch the conservative cliques in the party, who are simply out of tune with the Maltese zeitgeist today.

Dropping them from the front bench should not signify discarding them from the party – in any case they have nowhere else to go politically – but simply excluding them from positions where crucial PN policy is made.

Coupled with this, instead of giving shadow appointments to virtually every Nationalist member of Parliament, he must reshuffle his front bench to demonstrate not only the calibre of the ministers which a PN government would deliver, but also that a PN government would be leaner and more cost-effective than the current, bloated Labour administration.

In carrying out this reshuffle, he should take the opportunity to replace the many tired, failed, familiar old faces, who have served their party well but who have lost their spark and whose presence reminds too many voters of the dead hand of the last government.

And if Busuttil really wants to demonstrate that the PN is breaking with its past, is contrite and determined to renew itself, he might even dare to rebrand its fascistic emblem and motto, its fusty historical baggage from its past. He needs to demonstrate convincingly that the PN is entering a new phase.

In politics, the power of symbolic gestures can be game-changing.

Busuttil’s second objective should be to occupy the high ground in politics by telling a big, persuasive and distinctive story through the quality and depth of the PN’s policy analysis and development. This should focus on, and be inspired by, PN’s plans to make 21st century Malta not just a fairer and more meritocratic society (by ripping out cronyism in the way Muscat has lamentably failed to do), but also a more prosperous, better governed, less dysfunctional and turbulent country.

Every time Busuttil speaks or gives an interview, a voice in his head should tell him to avoid debating tricks and party political point-scoring and, instead to “Speak for Malta”.

This includes the need to speak with clarity on the major issues, as well as the courage to distance himself publicly from counter-productive, poison-pen PN bloggers that harm his party, and to admit that there are indeed some things that this government is doing right – as the people’s verdict two weeks ago has shown.

Unless Busuttil takes his courage in his own two hands and acts immediately to clean the Nationalist Party’s Augean stables, the odds of his being in Castille in 2018, or even 2023, will become more implausible by the day.

The time for bold action is now.