The British service pension drama has dragged on for the past 15 years or so. Now that the government has won the case on a technicality, the drama has come to an abrupt end.

The Labour government has forgotten the commitment in writing signed by then Opposition leader Joseph Muscat before the last election. The signed declaration, dated December 2, 2010, stated: “I am renewing the commitment of the Labour Party that, if in government after the next general election, action will be taken so that ex-servicemen would be entitled to the Maltese two-thirds pension along with their British service pension”.

With such a commitment, we expected that after taking office the Labour government would drop the case in the EU courts and stand by its commitment and give us what has been taken from us for years. Instead, the Labour government appealed when the EU Advocate General recommended that it was in breach of EU Laws and it was illegal to deduct the service pension from the State pension.

On the day that the EU court threw the case out, the jubilant Labour government issued a statement saying that, although the government won the case, service pensioners will continue receiving the €200 a year pension adjustment. In my case, I have to wait another six years to start taking my full national insurance pension.

With this statement the Labour government confirmed that it has no intention of keeping to its written commitment. By saying that the government is continuing with the €200 a year pension adjustment it is not giving us anything new because this pension adjustment of €200 a year was introduced by the previous government.

To add insult to injury, for the past three years it took up to eight months for the weekly increase announced in the Budget to be included in our pension cheque. We are in July and we still have not received this year’s €3.84 weekly increase.