When the story broke that the Labour Party has six hate groups totalling 60,000 people, I quickly sent an open letter to the Prime Minister, challenging him to denounce these groups, despite the fact that he himself and many of the party insiders form a part of them. I also chose to raise the fact that as the Prime Minister has said that he is stepping down, and the Labour Party commands historic support, now is the best time to introduce unpopular but absolutely crucial reform and to move away from the tribalism in the country.
Our country has not been this divided in generations, and it is my duty to try and understand why, rather than see things in a black and white perspective. Through my engagement in politics I have learned, in a very short time, that the blinkered worldview I grew up with was totally false. In Malta, the party you support provides you with a version of events that is hard to break out of. We should all know this by now. Perhaps the readers of this piece are nodding their heads sagely, without realising some of the traps they have themselves fallen into. This is unfortunately human nature. It is the duty of politicians to master communication so as to overcome such barriers.
Nonetheless, by representing the Democratic Party, and it being my duty to bridge the hateful divide between the two major parties and offer an alternative, I have gotten to know both sides of the story quite well. Corruption exists on both sides of the main political divide, and has always existed.
However, with the siege mentality experienced by the Labour Party, and the hypocrisy they view in the Nationalists, to get the message to hit home it must be done with some strategy, while still saying the same things.
I challenged the Prime Minister in a diplomatic fashion, for all to see, asking him to denounce these hate groups. That is because there is no moral ambiguity about them, no hiding the facts. Even if he himself is complicit and aware of them, he can still rise above the mess created by admitting that yes, what is wrong is wrong.
The Labour Party has in the past weeks tried very hard to play the victim and the underdog. These hate groups, their message, and their sheer size, demolish that illusion even more clearly than their electoral majority.
With all of your power, Prime Minister, do the right thing. Denounce these hate groups, and start introducing reforms that are crucial for the country. We have a huge water and environmental crisis, and the traffic is not getting any better. Prime Minister, do the right thing for a change. You do not have much left to lose.