Malta’s invitation to host CHOGM is partly due to the success of the 2005 summit held here – and the next Malta meeting could be the last opportunity to assure the Commonwealth’s future. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

The Prime Minister made an important, measured and well-received speech at the London School of Economics on July 21 on ‘The Commonwealth at 65 – From London to Valletta’.

In Malta, there was the usual carping from those whose mindset is so partisan, so blinded by prejudice against anything a Labour Prime Minister of Malta might say or do that all they could do was mock what he said and distort his key message about the future of the Commonwealth.

One commentator – an embittered and insufferable snob – even took the Prime Minister to task on account of his heavily accented English, as it sounded to her ears.

I have heard the Prime Minister speak in English on several occasions, and he does so clearly and fluently.

I should have added “and intelligently”. The Prime Minister’s speech in London dealt frankly with the huge challenges now facing the Commonwealth. In a year’s time Malta will be honoured – for the second time in 10 years – with hosting the Heads of Government meeting in Valletta.

That Malta should have been invited at short notice, by popular consent, to step into the breach following Mauritius’ withdrawal is a great compliment to this country and to the undoubted earlier success of the 2005 Commonwealth Summit.

Malta will benefit both in international political and economic terms from hosting the Commonwealth Summit. Quite apart from the perennial joke from hard-pressed Maltese about the benefits accruing from new roads and a countrywide clean-up, there will be an injection of new cash into the economy from the thousands of visitors over the period, as well as worldwide exposure in the media to the attractions of successful, democratic Malta.

The Prime Minister’s speech in London dealt with some of the vital make-or-break challenges now facing this 65-year-old political association of 54 independent sovereign states. He made three key points – none of them new, but all worth re-stating. And well stated by him.

First, he compared the Commonwealth to a sick patient prior to being diagnosed and prescribed appropriate medication. Secondly, he proposed that the Commonwealth should be about the future, rather than the past. He offered a number of models which could be adopted, from “disbandment and re-grouping” to “an improved Commonwealth…with programmes which nudged countries towards better governance and more open societies, fostering convergence rather than divergence”.

Thirdly, his message was that “the Commonwealth should not retire, but should decide what it wants to be. It can opt to remain as it is and sink into total irrelevance... or have the courage to make changes”. He had a number of constructive proposals of his own in this regard.

When, in 1949, the founding eight prime ministers then gathered together issued the declaration that created the Commonwealth, they were clear about what they were doing. Quite simply, out of the ashes of the old British Empire, the new assembly would bind nations “freely cooperating in the pursuit of peace, liberty and progress”. But 60 years later, by December 2009, Queen Elizabeth II would say of the organisation of which she is head, correctly and sadly: “The Commonwealth is not an organisation with a mission.” Muscat’s words in London echoed the same sentiments.

In 2011, the tellingly titled Eminent Persons Group presented a report, ‘A Commonwealth of the People: Time for Urgent Action’, in which they proposed a new Charter that tried to rescue the Commonwealth from its status as a post-imperial hangover.

It contained serious recommendations on the rule of law, democracy and human rights. It envisaged an organisation that was a league of trading democracies.

If the Commonwealth is unable to return to its noble origins it is hard to see the point of it

Unfortunately, as the summit in 2013 in Sri Lanka showed, these noble aspirations are mocked by the presence in the Commonwealth of countries which pay lip service (if that) to such core values as democracy, gender equality, human rights and free expression.

Forty-two Commonwealth countries make it a crime to be homosexual. More than half retain the death penalty, some of them for juvenile offenders, in clear breach of international human rights.

The Commonwealth record on gender equality is lamentable, with many countries practising genital mutilation and forced marriage of its women.

The record is not pretty. Perhaps a third of the Commonwealth’s member states have been accused of serious human rights abuses. In many member countries the police run rampant. Justice in some countries is dispensed in a wayward manner.

The Commonwealth is meant to be a community of shared values. There are, too, shared problems, such as climate change, and there are shared priorities for economic growth, higher literacy and the abolition of poverty in the poorer countries. There are also shared enthusiasms that bind, for example as seen last week at the Commonwealth Games.

But, as the Prime Minister highlighted, unless the Commonwealth finds a way to encourage true compliance with those values and common objectives, there is a danger that it could become irrelevant.

One has only to look at the African Union or the Arab League to have a glimpse of the future. Unless ways are found to re-generate the Commonwealth, the low point to which it has sunk could be a harbinger of worse to come.

If the Commonwealth is unable to return to its noble origins it is hard to see the point of it. If membership is to serve any purpose at all it must be to wield soft power and to exercise leverage on basic human rights. It may be necessary for the Commonwealth to get tough and to start expelling those of its members who cannot be said to embody the values to which the organisation is ostensibly committed. There are a number of worthy replacements waiting to join.

The great advantage of a common language, shared legal structures and political ties – as the Prime Minister rightly said, the Commonwealth commands 30 per cent of the votes at the United Nations – mean that it ought to provide a major stimulus to trade among the Commonwealth’s 2.1 billion citizens.

The cost of doing business within the Commonwealth is 20 per cent cheaper for members than it is for those outside it.

As Muscat also highlighted, the Commonwealth is in danger of losing its purpose and meaning. As host of the summit next year, he is preparing the ground for what could be a pivotal Heads of Government meeting in Malta. There can be no argument that the last summit in Sri Lanka cast serious doubts on the value and efficacy of this international body. The future of the Commonwealth has become an uncomfortable foreign policy issue.

The meeting in Malta could well provide the last opportunity for the future of the Commonwealth to be assured.

The Prime Minister is aware of this and it is to his credit that he is putting some thought into how Malta – despite its size – can help map the way forward. As Maltese, we should have the maturity to be prepared to recognise this without party political prejudice for it is due.