When historians eventually settle down to write the history of the Malta Labour Party they will find plenty of material written in the period we are living. Every week, if not every day, brings out new revelations. Not that some of these have not been known and, indeed, commented upon by opinion writers, including myself.
Some revelations, however, add value to the history of the short-lived Labour government led by Alfred Sant between 1996-98. One of these, of course, is what George Abela revealed in an interview with The Sunday Times that former Prime Minister Sant had personally drawn up a paper to start discussions with the Nationalist opposition in a bid to "convergence" about EU membership. This happened in 1997, which means only a few months after Dr Sant had frozen Malta's application for membership of the EU. Dr Abela, at that time, was deputy leader of the Labour Party and consultant to Dr Sant. According to Dr Abela, Lino Spiteri, John Attard Montalto, Dr Sant and himself had internal and informal discussions on the matter while Evarist Bartolo had penned a couple of articles in May 1998 in preparation for Labour's change of position on the EU issue.
I am never surprised at what is left out in political material written by politicians themselves. I would have expected Mr Spiteri to have referred to these important events in his autobiographical notes published last year. But, then, some of us observers of the local political landscape referred to those notes as more important for what was left out by Mr Spiteri rather than for what he chose to include.
But now we have a contender for the Labour leadership coming out with a story which, if it were revealed by himself or others in 1998 after Labour's crushing defeat, would have altered the course of history for the better. Dr Abela must have had his reasons for keeping the story under wraps but was it in the national interest to do so? Had it been revealed at that time, Labour members of Parliament who were known to be pro-membership of the EU would have had to take a position. Even Dr Sant himself would have had to react to a story narrated by his erstwhile deputy and consultant, to boot.
In The Sunday Times interview, Dr Abela explained how he preferred "to keep a low profile and even suppressed his views to ensure he caused no harm to the party he had helped to revive from the ashes in the space of five years". All well and good, but should not the interests of the country have been put first? This seems to be a huge problem inherent in Labour Party thinking. Rather than think of what is good for the country and then fashion party policies and actions accordingly, the good of the party comes first. On the other hand, the Nationalist Party has been successful precisely because they designed policies in view of what was best for the country. History is a witness to all this.
How much more is Dr Abela going to reveal? Is he going to indulge in a striptease only revealing what suits a particular stage in his campaign for MLP leadership? I for one would be very interested to learn whether Dr Abela agreed wholeheartedly with the removal of VAT and whether he was aware of the dirty trick played on Mr Spiteri regarding the abolition of VAT in order to have Mr Spiteri committed to it. Was Dr Abela also committed to it by Dr Sant and, therefore, had to live a lie, a situation which led to Mr Spiteri's resignation as Finance Minister? One cannot forget that the promised abolition of VAT by Dr Sant played an important part in reviving Labour's political fortunes before the 1996 election victory.
Also, Dr Abela must have been aware of the plan by Dr Sant to freeze Malta's application for membership of the EU. What was his reaction? Did he go along with it?
I'm sure that Dr Abela must realise that, once the punters get enthused while watching a stripper, they will always ask for more.