New Labour, new politics

That Labour’s far reaching overhaul of its rule book has been a success is proved by the way the Nationalist Party has tried to dismiss it as an unmitigated failure.

This was the tone it set in its media last week and since last Sunday.

Of course this rings very hollow with the average, intelligent non-committed voter.

The more the Nationalist Party’s media machine tries to depict Labour’s landmark conference last week as a non-event the more the PN loses its credibility and the more it casts itself as the party which is embedded in the old way of doing politics. It is, indeed, simply amazing how the Nationalist Party is failing to be smart in the face of such events.

The reason for this is that Labour, and particularly its Dr Joseph Muscat, its young but definitely not a novice, leader has caught the Nationalist Party on the back foot with this conference. Just a few months ago the Nationalist Party and its media made much of the fact that the new Labour leader was not elected by the Party’s entire membership but by its 900 odd delegates who were described as hailing mostly from the south and predominantly male.

This conference has changed all that. The next leader of the Labour Party will now be ultimately be chosen by the newly established party congress which will be made up of the delegates and all those party members who have been paid up for at least the preceding five years. Furthermore, the delegates, 40% of whom were already female anyway before the new statute was approved, will now be more representative of Maltese and Gozitan society. Indeed, the new statute approved last Sunday ensures that there is affirmative action in favour of delegates who are female and youths.

These two new rules alone mean that the two points the PN used to cast a shadow over Labour’s new leadership and the way it was elected last June have been simply eliminated by the very same delegates whom the PN criticized as being outdated and eager to hang on to their privileged position.

Of course, there are many other new changes which amount to a total overhaul and not just some tinkering here and there to the Labour Party’s statute. These will all shortly be available in hard and soft format. Personally, however, the fact that an appreciable number of the delegates not only attended the plenary sessions but also practically camped all week at the National Labour Centre where they went through the draft line by line is futher evidence and evidence enough that last week’s events confirm not only that we have a new Labour Party but also a new way of doing politics.