Six years ago the Labour Party (PL), then headed by Alfred Sant, did not accept the EU referendum outcome and, believing, against all evidence, that his party had won, went on to contest the subsequent general election on the same platform, no to EU membership.

Labour held then that the best option for Malta was to negotiate what they termed as a partnership agreement. Sticking to the same stand in the election as that adopted in the referendum must rank as one of the biggest errors of political judgment ever made by the PL. For how could those who voted for membership, including, obviously, thousands of Labour supporters, change their view within so short a time and vote for the PL when they knew what the party stood for?

The view then was that discontent against the Nationalists was so strong that had the PL been wise enough to change its stand in time and go for membership, they would have won the general election, maybe not hands down, as some might have thought, but they would have nonetheless carried the day.

But they were not wise enough to change their stand and, as expected by all except Labour, the party lost the election. All this was clear enough to all, or so one thought, until one of the PL candidates for the forthcoming European Parliament elections, Marlene Mizzi, came along the other day and, in an interview with timesofmalta.com, expressed an opinion that is, not to put too fine a point on it, bizarre.

Ms Mizzi believes that Labour would have accepted the outcome of the referendum had it been elected. In the circumstances, she has a duty to explain what she means. Is she privy to information nobody knows anything about, or what? On what, exactly, does she base her belief?

Considering the very stiff stand put up by the PL against membership, to the extent that the leadership had ignored the referendum outcome and insisted on partnership as the best option for Malta, Ms Mizzi's "belief" is amazing. No one would ever believe that, had Labour been elected, it would have accepted the outcome of the referendum. On the contrary, when it displayed such crude hard-headedness, it would have marched on and followed what it thought was the best course for the island.

The problem for Labour was that its course was not the best one for Malta. The people realised this and, once again, voted for EU membership in the election. It took time for Labour to change its course. But even after it did so, the party, or at least its leader, still believed theirs was the best option. Indeed, at one point, Dr Sant had gone so far as saying that, given their record of having continued to say the truth, even when many people did not seem to want to listen, they would be in a much better position to discern where Malta's interests lay and how best to push them forward. This was unadulterated political arrogance at its best. In other words, they were then saying they knew best, irrespective of the people's opinion.

Yes, as the new party leader Joseph Muscat is now saying, the membership issue is now closed. But having been so anti-EU membership is nothing to be proud of. On the contrary, it shows the party was unable to read correctly Malta's road to its political destination. And that is a lot of political baggage to carry.