I have been watching with a morbid fascination as the political porn of the British government’s crumbling resolve and direction in delivering Brexit is played out on the 24-hour news cycle.
Two things stand out in the mounting chaos. Firstly, Brexit promises have proven to be about as real as the unicorn on the UK’s coat of arms. There was no real ‘Leave’ plan beyond politicians’ ego, xenophobic prejudice, economic jingoism and imperial nostalgia.
Eager expectations of quick-fix trade arrangements with the ex-colonies were as unrealistic as they were vague. Businesses are leaving, the City is under siege and EU nationals working in the UK are still completely in the dark.
In its misguided reliance on its links with the ex-colonies, its obdurate insistence to keep the Northern Ireland time bomb to its chest, and its cavalier attitude towards the rest of Europe, Brexit can be seen as the final, exquisite torture that the UK is being made to pay as penance for its imperial past.
But there is a second, possibly more important point to Brexit. As Theresa May’s government gradually lost the plot and its authority in the Westminster Parliament, I could not but admire the way the process of UK parliamentary democracy was standing up to the stresses of chaotic governance.
The government’s highest legal authority and a senior cabinet minister twice had to give a legal opinion on Brexit that was not servile to the government in which he served, but looked to the best interests of the nation. Speaker John Bercow, previously a member of the Conservative Party in power, has made rulings that strengthened the authority and prestige of Parliament, in inverse proportion to the government’s.
When May a few days ago all but accused Parliament of going against the will of the people, both sides rose to rebuke her attack on the sovereignty of Parliament.
Brexit is in a bloody mess, but the UK parliamentary system of checks and balances is in fine fettle. Can you imagine Malta’s Speaker Anġlu Farrugia taking the kind of stand that his UK counterpart has? Or any Maltese Justice Minister, or indeed any Member of Parliament of a party in government rising to defend the integrity and authority of Malta’s Parliament against his or her own government?
Those quailing turtle doves
For the second year running, Ornis, the ‘independent’ committee that ‘recommends’ to government the dates for Malta’s infamous hunting seasons, decided in its infinite wisdom to allow the spring hunting season for quail. This in spite of the fact that a detailed analysis in February 2018 by Birdlife Malta showed that this spring hunting season was against EU regulations.
It gets worse. Ornis did not align the spring hunting season with the peak migration of quail. Instead it conveniently moved the dates to fit the peak migration of another species of bird, the turtle dove, of which hunting is illegal.
Brexit is in a bloody mess, but the UK parliamentary system of checks and balances is in fine fettle
As we would say in Maltese: “X’kumbinazzjoni!”
But the Federazzjoni Kaċċaturi Nassaba Konservazzjonisti, ever mindful of the sterling reputation of its community as a law-abiding bunch, has already taken matters in hand to make sure that no luckless turtle dove will be mistaken for a quail. It plans to print flashcards of quail and turtle dove for the education of its members.
Each hunter will have to be flanked by a man with binoculars feverishly scanning the skies and matching the incoming specks to the flashcards to check whether they, the specks, are shootable or not. Hikers of the Maltese countryside will be regaled with the noble cries of “Le, mhix dik, le…ħaqq mhux dik għedtlek!” resounding over the garigue.
Finally, hunters will be obliged to give a donation to charity for Lent for every turtle dove they shoot down by accident. So it’s all fixed.
A word of explanation to the befuddled foreigners: no, it’s not madness. It’s ‘best of times’ Malta.
The Eye will fail
For Lord Of The Ring fans (and I mean the diehard ones who, like me, actually read the books before they saw the films), New Zealand is the land of Hobbits, Elves and Numenorians, both Lothlórien and Mordor.
Today it may seem to be more of the latter than the former, for the massacre of 50 Muslim worshippers at Christchurch a few days ago reeks of pure evil. It is the same evil that inhabits all lethal fanaticism, irrespective of its political or religious justification. The butcher of Christchurch has much more in common with Isis than with anyone trying to live a Christian or Muslim faith in peace with their neighbours.
Yet as the full scale of the rent in the fabric of New Zealand society was revealed, it called forth this magisterial response from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern: “They (the dead and wounded) were ours. They are us.” With these words she sought to avert political gangrene. But these words also countered the mad logic of sectarian hate with the balm of community. She has since matched her words with concrete action.
In so doing, Prime Minister Ardern has set the international standard for the moral imperative of governance in a multi-cultural world.
Our Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has angrily rejected the link the butcher of Christchurch made with Malta’s Great Siege of 1565. “Malta has become a symbol of peace and equality and we welcome everyone here”, he said. It was entirely right and proper for him to say so. If only it were true.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece