Former Nationalist minister Tonio Fenech kept up his anti-gay marriage crusade and said the parties' decision not to grant a free vote on the matter was akin to North Korean methods.

"If the two parties are scared to grant their MPs a free vote on Wednesday, then it would truly mean that Malta has become like North Korea, that punishes objectors, and not a true European country," Mr Fenech wrote on his Facebook wall.

He tagged the comments to a Times of Malta interview with Edwin Vassallo uploaded this morning in which the conservative MP said he had asked party leader Simon Busuttil for a free vote on gay marriage before the general election, and got "no feedback at all".

Writing on Facebook, Mr Fenech continued in his objection to the Marriage Equality Bill, which would formalise the introduction of gay marriage in Malta.

"In this country, you can insult the Archbishop and ridicule pictures of Jesus all you like, but you aren't allowed to disagree with the destruction of the concept of marriage as we know it,” he said. 

He also claimed that both the Labour and Nationalist parties were supporting the Bill out of political convenience and not ideological conviction.

He said the fact the PN proposed 80 amendments to the Bill proves it was not the same law the party had agreed to implement when it had included gay marriage in its electoral manifesto.

"The argument that the PN cannot grant their MPs a conscience vote [because gay marriage was in their manifesto] therefore falls flat," he said.

He questioned how the PN can continue calling itself a party based on values when it ignored an objection to the Bill raised by one of its own MPs.