On the 30th anniversary of the death of Mabel Strickland on November 29, Victor Aquilina answers a frequently asked question: why had Mabel Strickland broken away from her party and switched support to the PN? She may not have risen to great heights in politics but she relentlessly championed press freedom, fought for women’s rights and made a strong contribution to journalism.

Mabel Strickland, fourth daughter of Lord Strickland, certainly one of the most controversial figures in Maltese politics last century and whose name still resonates today, had an interesting and varied life. She was garrulous, domineering and highly active at a time when women were considered best suited to be left behind in the kitchen.

But why had she switched support to the Nationalist Party in 1952? She had actually switched support to George Borg Olivier’s coalition with the Malta Workers’ Party. When she had stuck with her father through thick and thin in all his political battles, right from the start of self-government in 1921 to the very difficult years of his administration till he passed away in 1940, few could understand her move, which ultimately led to the collapse of the Constitutional Party, or as it was more popularly known, il-partit ta’ Strickland.

Her party was dismayed when, less than two years after it was reconstituted in 1950, she felt that “the stability of the coalition government over a reasonable period should be above any party or individual, or sectional action that would tend to lessen the coalition government’s ability to seek a solution to vital economic matters and to concentrate on administration”. She was vice-chairman at the time, but feeling that she could also perhaps make a greater impact on the political scene if she sided with Borg Olivier, she stepped down.

Steering away from her official explanation, a more compelling reason was Mabel’s ingrained fear of Dom Mintoff’s socialist ideas. She considered Mintoff a first-class firebrand and strongly believed he represented a threat to Malta’s stability and its relations with Britain. In a way, her decision to support the coalition was not as outrageous as many made it out to be, given the political circumstances of the time.

Or was it more a result of Borg Olivier’s political shrewdness in winning her over to his coalition? A strong point in her favour was that times had changed since her father’s turbulent days, but most party supporters were unwilling to accept such an argument as, to them, true Constitutionals could never ever vote for the Nationalist Party. Even so, the times of Lord Strickland and his arch-rival, Enrico Mizzi, were long gone; the war had buried for good the long-running ‘language question’, and the island had generally moved on. To her credit, Mabel had sensed the wind of change and was therefore moving on too.

One little problem for her though was that only months before her resignation, her party boasted that with the reconstitution of the Constitutional Party, “all rival political parties in the field have panicked… As a cornered cat would jump at its attacker, so have Boffists, Mintoffians and Nationalists lashed out at the reconstituted Constitutional Party”. This, it argued in a leader in the party’s organ, The Banner, was substantial proof, if proof were needed, of the Constitutional Party’s strength.

I feel any lack of stability in the government is suicidal to major Maltese interests, to the administration and to forward planning- Mabel Strickland

Needless to say, her party was not amused at her decision to resign the vice-chairmanship. In a strong letter, signed by the leader, Robert V. Galea, the executive committee pointed out that her decision “to be free of the party’s executive responsibilities, being as it is incompatible with the spirit and letter of the statute of the party which requires every member of the party’s parliamentary group to be an ex officio member of the executive committee, renders your position inside the party untenable”.

She was further told that her decision “to take an individual line of action in Parliament is an act of insubordination, totally unacceptable to the party, leading the executive committee no alternative but to consider you as no longer representing the interests of the Constitutional Party in Parliament”. In other words, she was expelled.

With former British Prime Minister Edward Heath.

Mabel declared herself an “Independent Constitutionalist” and, probably out of pique, she later told her staff at the Times of Malta and Il-Berqa to strike off the word Constitutionalist. What a turn of events. Hardline Striklandjani could hardly believe it.

In a most stinging assessment of her character, drawn up in a secret report to the Colonial Office in 1947, Mabel was held to be indecisive, a view shared by those working for her. One of her lawyers, Carmelo Scicluna, used to say she had a grasshopper’s mind.

Secret reports about public figures drawn up for the Colonial Office were often brutal but they were also invariably correct. This is what one such report said of Mabel: “‘Editor and proprietress of the Times of Malta and The Sunday Times of Malta. Imagines that her father’s mantle has fallen on her shoulders. Has courage and energy and performed useful service by producing her papers without any hiatus during the siege. She is a sycophant, and her friendship cannot be relied on. Her views and opinions change from week to week and she loves intrigue. Owing to her intrigues and insistence in directing policy, she was largely responsible for the collapse of the Constitutional Party. With her manifold faults, she is a very staunch pro-Britisher but often does the cause more harm than good.”

Mabel tried to justify her decision to resign from the party in a letter she wrote for her own newspaper, Times of Malta, which she edited before going into politics in 1950. In Parliament, she wrote, “it is the duty of the Opposition to oppose and to accept the responsibility of the consequences for so doing. But today I feel any lack of stability in the government is suicidal to major Maltese interests, to the administration and to forward planning.

 “I was returned to Parliament in the third legislature by the votes of Constitutionals in the fourth district and the preferences cast in my favour by the supporters of the Malta Workers’ Party and of the Nationalist Party, which two parties now form the coalition government, and I have always held that a Member of Parliament is not responsible to any non-elected body, and I have not deviated from my Constitutional principles.”

But her party and the Constitutional Party supporters would not accept her views, more so when to many she had carried her father’s torch, as it were, even though she certainly did not have his political acumen. Her sister, Cecilia (De Trafford), who had been elected twice for the Constitutional Party and who, unlike Mabel, could speak Maltese (Lord Strickland spoke indifferent Maltese), felt Mabel’s move was a big blow to the Constitutional Party as it deprived it of the press founded by their father. Lord Strickland must have turned in his grave over Mabel’s action. The Constitutional Party paid Mabel in kind and, infuriated as it had been over her move, challenged her seat in the legislative assembly as her Progress Press had received a government contract for the printing of the official reports of the debates of the assembly and pool coupons for the public lotto department. A court of appeal declared her seat vacant on January 26, 1953.

Mabel Strickland speaking at a corner meeting. On her left is Anthony Montanaro.

Losing her seat was a big blow to her. Mabel was accused of disowning her party on whose platform she had been elected, and her boast of working the Constitution was considered “an empty bubble” because “now that she styles herself as an Independent Constitutionalist,” her following was infinitesimal.

Mabel had then gone on to set up her Progressive Constitutional Party to work for constitutional and social progress “for Malta and Gozo as part of the British Commonwealth of nations”, with Edwin Busuttil as deputy leader and Anthony Montanaro, long-time editor of Il-Berqa and, subsequently, of The Sunday Times of Malta, as secretary. But she failed to get elected in 1953 and 1955 elections and had to wait till 1962 to make it to Parliament again.

The Constitutional Party contested the 1953 election but none of its candidates got elected, after which it bowed out altogether, an ignominious ending to a party that had made such an impact on pre-war politics in colonial Malta.

As for Mabel, she may not have risen much politically but she was among the first to fight for women’s rights, and, journalistically, her biggest contribution was the setting up, together with father, of the Times of Malta, in 1935, and as editor of the newspaper during the war.

Victor Aquilina is author of Strickland House: The standard-bearers and launching of the Times of Malta, Book One: 1921–1935, and Strickland House: Times of Malta at war and Labour Party’s sweeping victory, Book Two: 1935–1947. His upcoming work is Lord Strickland: Plots and intrigue in colonial Malta.