The stand Simon Busuttil took on the spring hunting referendum has left thousands of party supporters aggrieved.

The PN leadership knew beforehand that their stand on the referendum would leave a long trail of profoundly hurt supporters, but the hurt would be nothing compared with that inflicted on them by the party when in power until March 2013.

This time, in the local elections, the injured would remain steadfastly loyal to the party. Though shotgun whipped, members wouldn’t be switching in droves again. A time for healing after licking their wounds and all would be forgiven.

The leadership banked on this and they were right, right in the sense of reading the signs correctly. Whether the leadership was right morally is highly contentious. For the admirable principles Busuttil once had flying tall over the moral high ground he once stood on have now come crashing down, blasted out of the sky by the bird-killers’ double-barrelled shotguns.

The spring hunting derogation Busuttil fought so hard for has been a dismal failure. Policing has been a tragic farce and the crowning irony being that only a handful of hunters will ever be beholden to him.

In an eyeball-to-eyeball showdown with the hunters’ lobby, our two spineless political giants were always the first to blink. Naively I’ve always given credit to Busuttil for his bedrock principles from which nothing and no one would be able to make him budge. Busuttil, however, is no rock.

However, there is a way out for these deeply-hurt supporters and for them to remain as loyal as ever to the party. At the next general elections, all they need do is reserve their second-preference vote, and their second-preference vote only, for Alternattiva Demokratika.

With so many hurt PN supporters expressing their distress AD might one day straighten out the big parties once and for all.

A truly green party would be Malta’s hope to break the mould. No longer will our leading politicians be held over, and looking down, well, a barrel.