Photo: Darrin Zammit LupiPhoto: Darrin Zammit Lupi

The signs were all there. Before the polling booths opened, the masks were off already. Hunters and Labour activists teamed up in various localities and distributed sample ballots telling Labour voters which box to tick.

It was not a case that Labour's hardcore did not know what they should vote for. Labour leader, saviour, and yes incidentally, our prime minister, Joseph Muscat had already told them what to do.

He will be voting for spring hunting, and even the dumbest Labour voter understood what that meant.

What they didn't understand was if Dear Joseph meant 'yes' or 'no', because the referendum question was so confusing that Labour activists and hunters felt they had to distribute the sample ballots at the eleventh hour.

Labour could not trust its hardcore voter to put the cross in the correct box.

Pseudo-liberal switchers who have embraced Labour must be proud today to know that their vote is equal to, and assimilated with, such a voter base. It must feel so great to be Labour in this day and age. God bless them.

That blind is Labour's electoral base, that loyal is the average Labour voter to Muscat. That dangerous is Labour

The Prime Minister denied his involvement (but not so much that of his party) when he told the nation with a straight face on Sunday that had he campaigned for hunting, the result would have been different. That cocksure he is of his hold on party supporters. Or was that a whiffof arrogance?

The hunting referendum outcome was a foregone conclusion. It was a useless exercise undertaken by a naïve middle class generation that has had it too good for too long under successive Nationalist governments. This spoilt generation actually thought that Labour was staying out of the equation and that the referendum would be a level playing field.

That may have happened under a PN government, but no more today. It is time to wake up to the reality that is Labour.

Anyone wanting to fight the rot this country is in has to be in it for the long haul. That referendum was based on the hope that there is a moral majority out there that actually cares for the environment, for the common good and for creating a better future for our children.

There is no such hope now. It will take a generation to undo the terrible mess of last weekend. May our children forgive us.

Labour understands hunters because it represents exactly the worst of the Maltese psyche: egoism, myopic thinking and downright ignorance.

The majority has spoken and the result is a national embarrassment. Labour and the hunters have won, and the country has lost, again. There is no stopping the excesses that shall come as this government grows older and bolder.

Muscat had sussed it right from the beginning. The environment does not win you votes.

He knows that for the average voter who puts his trust in him, the environment does not mean anything more than having good roads, flowerbeds on roundabouts, playing fields to keep the kids quiet and parks to litter on Sunday afternoons.

The anti-hunting lobby thought it was appealing to a public conscience that, as things turned out, does not exist much. The effort was a pathetic failure because they thought they could make this a non-political issue.

They took Muscat at his word and were outflanked by a Labour Party that has become an expert at electoral deceit and double games.

Given the narrow margin between the No and Yes votes, Labour has a lot to answer for why the balance tipped so sweetly in the hunters' favour.

The No lobby never stood a chance because everything in this country is political and they naively failed to see that.

The referendum outcome has confirmed what Muscat knows, and has been saying, all along: the Maltese do not think with their heads but with their pockets.

Many do not give a damn for the environment, never did and never will.

They'd rather get a cost of living cheque in their letterbox from the government than do something as incredible as saving a bird's life.

That would be too altruistic an action for this ostensibly Christian nation. That would have involved compassion and responsibility.

It would have meant the country has grown up from childish colonialism.

Last Saturday was a day of national shame, where this country said yes to shooting birds for the fun of it.

We still think with a colonial mind that makes us irresponsible towards the rest of the world around us, a world that allows those birds to fly to their breeding grounds.

Not so long ago, this country was united around an ideal, the ideal of belonging to a civilised and unified Europe based on the respect of human rights and freedom in its widest sense.

That ideal is gone and has been replaced by a rainbow-coloured Labour umbrella called Tagħna Lkoll, out to plunder the country.

With this referendum victory, Labour, and most especially Muscat, has just proved that it can deliver whatever the odds, even if it is something as illogical as shooting birds.

That blind is Labour's electoral base, that loyal is the average Labour voter to Muscat. That dangerous is Labour.

This is a wake-up call to all those pseudo-liberals, pseudo-independent thinkers, pseudo-idealists to finally realise that everything in this country is political and partisan.

That is the reality.

Under PN governments, it was all sweet and cool to be critical of the government because in the end, you always knew that the PN, for all its defects, was the best option available.

That has changed since the last election. The game and the stakes have changed. The referendum result just shows how dangerous and destructive Labour can be for this country.

More than ever before, Muscat will now rule this country like a fiefdom, exactly the way his predecessor Dom Mintoff did.

Mintoff's methods were rough, abrasive and sometimes led to violence. Muscat's methods are more refined, but they are just as aggressive towards those who want what is right for this country and still believe in the common good.

The absolute winner at the referendum was Muscat. In one fell swoop, he has clipped the hunters' wings by allowing them the narrowest of victories, and at the same time demoralised the environment lobby that has been causing him so much irritation since he came to power two years ago. Both hunters and environmentalists have emerged bruised.

Anyone thinking that the referendum was a near miss is only deluding himself. As Muscat himself boasted, he could have swung the vote far more in favour of the hunters but did not. Like this, he can now pretend to placate that conscientious minority that came out full of hope to vote against spring hunting.

Never has Muscat looked so powerful and so scary. His hold upon this country, upon his party and his supporters is absolute. He knows that there are many more crosses like those put on the Yes box should he need to call upon them.

That cross for hunting is now our national cross.

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