Not for sale – three simple words that have become the rallying cry for Maltese under this Labour government. Just before Christmas, the news was leaked that the government had tweaked a few points while still adamantly refusing to budge on the main principle of its cash-for-passports scheme.

It was still ploughing ahead with its plans to sell citizenship to anyone with the right amount of cash, wherever it came from. They would still not have to ever reside in Malta, or to have anything other than the must superficial of links with us.

The government has so far admitted that “things could have been done better” and that it had now shown “it had listened”. It may very well have heard the sheer volume of criticism from all four corners of the world, but it has not listened to a thing. The changes are simply too little and too late. The scheme is unsalvageable.

We all remember the haste with which Joseph Muscat reconvened Parliament on a weekend to push the scheme through. We remember the smug smile with which he responded to international outrage and to the young protestors outside the Parliament building. We all tried to warn him not to go ahead with this ill-thought out plan, but he ignored everybody.

Then he spent two months trying to do what he thinks he knows best – spin the story to his advantage. He failed, dismally.

The critical voices grew louder and he panicked. He tweaked a few minor parts of the law in an effort to blur the fact that anyone will soon be able to buy a Maltese passport on the cheap without any residency requirement. He will fail again.

What is the point of admitting one’s mistakes if you refuse to learn anything from them?

As the Times of Malta editorial aptly put it: “Joseph Muscat is wrong if he thinks he can fool people all the time.”

It is up to us to be the voice of the majority who are outraged and angered that this government has insisted on putting a price on their nationality, on putting us in the same basket as Caribbean micro-states and turning us into a global laughing stock in just nine short months.

This scheme, which has become the new face of Labour, was never mentioned in any electoral manifesto or even alluded to before the election.

It leads us to ask why Labour is insisting on forcefully rushing this scheme through. What promises has it made that are now making them sell the nation’s heirloom like the traditional January sales?

Is there somebody in particular to whom it is indebted, with the pound of flesh being the Maltese passport? Why is it placing so much trust in a private company to run this scheme practically singlehandedly with an absence of checks and balances by any truly public and autonomous authority?

Nothing better symbolises this government’s arrogance and blatant disregard for our intelligence, than the way in which the cosmetic changes to the scheme were announced.

Firstly, the changes were buried in the run up to Christmas.

The government claimed it had consulted stakeholders when it turned out it ‘consulted’ one or two of them. It claimed that people would now also have to buy or rent property in Malta.

Turns out they don’t have to live in it for any period of time, and there are no conditions on when they can put it back on the market.

There is still no bond with the country. This is still simply a cash transaction. For the Labour Party, having the money available makes you a ‘person of calibre’ that it stated, unfairly and incorrectly, that Malta is ’short of’.

The only way out is for this law to be repealed

Go tell that to the many Maltese doctors who are top-tier physicians and surgeons at home and abroad.

Go tell that to the hundreds of Maltese recruits of European institutions who have established a reputation as professional officials.

Go tell that to so many other categories of Maltese who have over the years painstakingly made a living for themselves. But do not go tell it to bodies like the European Parliament, as Finance Minister Edward Scicluna shamelessly did.

But it is more than that. The outrage across the EU and in the Brussels corridors was palpable.

So much so that the major political parties in the European Parliament, including the European People’s Party, the Socialists and the Greens agreed to have a debate in plenary on the issue.

Tellingly, the debate is titled ‘EU Citizenship for Sale’. Labour quickly issued a statement criticising the debate, claiming the PN is harming the country.

Can you imagine any other party getting hot under the collar because a debate is taking place in the seat of the EU’s only directly democratically elected institution?

Surely, if you are so confident of the scheme, and the world’s press is all wrong, then a debate would be a welcome opportunity to explain what you want to achieve with this scheme.

Let me spell it out. The PN does not have control of the world’s media organisations. It is not the PN that is savaging the country’s reputation but this cash-for-passports scheme that the government is insisting on bulldozing through.

Joseph Muscat lost another golden opportunity to draw a line under the scandal but insisted on running roughshod over us all. The voices of discontent will grow louder. The only way out is for this law to be repealed immediately.

It will not go away. We will not be silenced. We cannot be bought. We are not for sale.

Twitter: @robertametsola

Roberta Metsola is a Nationalist MEP