An agitated meeting held two months before Dom Mintoff stepped down as prime minister saw Margaret Thatcher secretly admit that he was right in asking the UK to solve its war wrecks problem.

The meeting was held in October of 1984, at a time when Church-State relations in Malta had deteriorated and nearly three years after Labour won a majority of seats in Parliament despite failing to get the majority of votes.

Dom Mintoff had actually asked for a meeting in July, asking to see Mrs Thatcher within a week. But she showed “considerable reluctance”, partly because it was unclear why Mr Mintoff wanted to meet.

The account of the meeting between the two premiers is documented in files released recently in the UK which were passed on to this newspaper by Tommy Norton, a London-based Gibraltarian researcher and journalist.

Mrs Thatcher’s private secretary, Charles Powell, writes that on October 3, 1984, she met Mr Mintoff, his Foreign Minister, Alex Sciberras Trigona, and Acting High Commissioner Frank Cassar.

Mrs Thatcher began by asking Mr Mintoff about the problems between the Church and State in Malta. He noted that he would reach a settlement and that it was a minor problem, but he also hit back, noting that he hoped Mrs Thatcher would be able to settle the miners’ strike quickly.

The detailed account of their conversation mentions that a particular problem for Malta was that of bombs and wrecks in Grand Harbour.

Malta had invested in port installations that could not be used unless the channels were dredged.

This, in turn, could not be done until the bombs and wrecks were cleared.

Although one may dislike his modus operandi, he is a patriot and by his own lights is doing his best for Malta

The only reply Mr Mintoff received was that Sir Geoffrey Howe, then Foreign Secretary, would consider whether Britain could help over a further survey. In keeping with her brief, Mrs Thatcher said she had nothing to add.

“Mr Mintoff found this unsatisfactory. This was a far more important problem for Malta than the Church issue,” Mr Powell wrote. Later he noted: “Mr Mintoff, who became steadily more agitated, said variously that there was no point in a further survey unless it was clear that the UK would subsequently help clear the bombs and wrecks…”

Mr Mintoff threatened to raise the matter with the appropriate international bodies and said that he would seek help elsewhere. If Mrs Thatcher expected him to be satisfied with the consideration of a survey, “she took him for a bigger mug than he was.”

Mr Mintoff is described by Mr Powell as grumbling that the outcome of the talks was unsatisfactory and that he would have to seriously consider Malta’s next steps.

But Mr Powell adds in his confidential document to Colin Budd, from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office: “The Prime Minister observed to me afterwards that although she had abided resolutely by the recommended line on bombs and wrecks, she thought that the Maltese were justified in looking to us for help in solving the problem”.

Whither Malta in 1983?

This is a review of 1983 by the British Ambassador to Malta, Charles Booth.  Richard Neilson, Head of the Southern European Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was writing to Sir Julian Bullard, Deputy Under Secretary of State at the FCO.

If 1982 was a depressing year for Malta, 1983 was no better – and was “arguably worse” for Charles Booth.

Internally, Dom Mintoff “took on the Church, passing legislation to expropriate a large slice of its wealth and clobbered other minority groups such as the farms, employers and private enterprise”.

On the positive side, the premier succeeded in stemming unemployment growth.

Externally, Mintoff’s principal preoccupation was a “strenuous and unrelenting” search for aid, foreign orders for Maltese industry, or barter trade.

“He was prepared to flirt in any quarter, East, West or non-aligned, in his search,” Mr Booth continued.

“Our bilateral relationship, never of any substance in recent years and burdened by sterile disputes, worsened because of consular problems and in July actually came close to rupture, because of the Price case.”

Anthony Price, he later explained, was a deserter from the Rhine Army and held in prison on a “trumped-up charge”, partly because of Mintoff’s fear about threats to his security from Britain, and probably also in “exchange or revenge for one of his clients charged in Britain”.

Booth also refers to what he calls the “anomalous” result of the 1981 General Election, when the Nationalist party won a small overall majority of votes but a minority of seats.

This result, according to Booth, continued to cast a shadow and divide loyalties of the politically conscious Maltese in “increasingly bitter polarisation”.

Answering the question “Whither Malta”, Mr Booth concluded that Mintoff would not fall into the lap of any predatory power, whether Libya, the USSR or North Korea, however “dangerously he may seem to flirt with them”.

Mr Booth concluded: “Although one may dislike his modus operandi, he is a patriot and by his own lights is doing his best for Malta.”

In his reaction to the review, Nielsen tells Mr Booth that his list of Mintoff’s initiatives “highlighted the crazy sweep of his activities”.

He notes that firmness with the Maltese would never be easy, but adds that “now that we no longer have the British base in Malta to worry about, we can afford to be a bit tougher”.

In his correspondence with Bullard, Mr Nielson was a bit more colourful.

He notes that “Malta will remain, at least as long as he is Premier, a society whose deep divisions he will continue to exploit.

“There is no one of comparable stature to succeed him.”

Democracy in Malta, Mr Nielson later adds, just survives.

But about Mr Booth’s concluding remarks, he insists that while he cannot challenge his judgement that he is doing his best for Malta, Mintoff’s “lights are not ours”.

Malta in their eyes

■ Malta is a small levantine society which cannot entirely be judged by normal Western standards.– R.A. Neilson

■ We have lived with Mr Mintoff’s hostility before and can do so again. - H.N.H. Synnott

■ If Mr Mintoff behaves badly or chooses to have a row, we have little to lose. – From the steering brief before the meeting.