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11 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 29 MAY 2019 Steven Fielding is Professor of Political History at the University of Nottingham OPINION LABOUR'S performance in the European elections was appalling. For a party aspir- ing to form the next govern- ment, winning just 14% of the vote and coming third behind the Liberal Democrats would normally set the alarm bells clanging. But these are not normal times. The elections were not even supposed to happen: Britain should already be out of the EU. And it's not unusual for Eu- ropean elections to produce idiosyncratic results: turn out is invariably low – it was 37% this year – and with many uncertain about the function of the European Parliament, voters have often used them to give a kick to whoever is in government. Yet, even though European elections produce a distorted picture of public opinion, they have influenced West- minster politics. UKIP topped the poll in 2014, encouraging then prime minister David Cameron to support an EU referendum. And this year they have al- ready cost Theresa May her job as prime minister and cast a dark shadow over the con- test to succeed her with lead- ing candidates effectively re- peating Brexit Party lines. Jeremy Corbyn's leadership will also be shaken by the elec- tion's aftershocks, although it will likely take time for them to work their way through the party. Since the 2017 general elec- tion, Corbyn's position has been secure because many members believed Labour's unexpectedly strong showing was due to him and the radi- cal policies he advanced. Even critics like deputy leader Tom Watson conceded that thanks to Corbyn, "some- thing magical happened" in June 2017. But there were other reasons why Labour did well. An ill-judged Conservative campaign headed by a leader with strikingly poor com- munication skills meant that instead of just being about securing a big majority for May's Brexit plans, the elec- tion also became about the inequities of austerity. This allowed Corbyn to talk about the issues he wanted – like the very popular pledge to abolish tuition fees – and to discuss Brexit as little as possible. On the fence Corbyn's immediate re- sponse to the 2016 referen- dum was to accept the result but to transcend the Leave- Remain divide by being eva- sive as to what precise version of Brexit he supported. Ini- tially this appeared a cunning ploy. For however well Labour did in 2017 Corbyn still failed to win a Commons majority. In order to do that the party needed to win largely manual working-class seats in which Leave voters predominate while holding on to more af- fluent constituencies where Remain voters are in the ma- jority. Corbyn hoped he could ac- complish this difficult task by sidestepping Brexit in favour of talking up issues which united Britons, specifically the injustices of austerity, which he argued were more pressing than Britain's mem- bership of the EU. But as May's inability to deliver a deal became ever more obvious voters began to identify ever more strongly as Leave or Remain. This polarisation was also true of nearly 90% of Labour members and 75% of party supporters who backed an- other referendum in which most of them intended to vote Remain. For a man who said he want- ed Labour to be a member- led party, Corbyn's refusal to embrace these positions was paradoxical. Corbyn's implacability was not just due to electoral prag- matism. That was arguably a convenient cover for more ba- sic – and ideological – think- ing. The Labour leader has al- ways been hostile to the EU. He voted for Britain to leave what was then the EEC in the 1975 referendum and, like many of his generation on the left, always saw the institution as a "capitalist club". If this meant Corbyn stood at odds with the majority of Labour members, many trust- ed in his intentions – espe- cially as some prominent Re- mainers could be painted as Blairites exploiting the issue to undermine his leadership, one that appeared so close to power. But in the past few months pressure from prominent Corbyn supporters has inten- sified. The Love Socialism Hate Brexit group, which sees Brexit as "a Tory project and a massive assault on working class people", has been par- ticularly influential. Too late to the party? Labour's performance in the European elections has seen loyalists like Emily Thornber- ry call for Corbyn to embrace a referendum and abandon a Brexit policy so vague few in the public understood it – and it appears to have lost both Leave and Remain supporters. But even if he is inclined to jump off the fence, the electoral damage might al- ready have been done. Some voters lost this time to the Liberal Democrats and other enthusiastic Remain parties might return to Labour in a general election: this kind of thing has happened after pre- vious European contests. But with Leave/Remain identities now often trump- ing those of Labour/Con- servative, Corbyn might have missed the bus. This is not the end of Cor- byn. But it might now be the beginning of the end. Many members still believe a Corbyn-led government is the greatest prize of all, even though the aura of 2017 has dimmed. If, in the wake of these re- sults, he is challenged by a long-established critic such as Tom Watson, Corbyn will survive. But, before long, an ardent Remainer with more credibil- ity among members – a Keir Starmer perhaps – may even- tually mount a challenge. By then, however, Britain might be out of the EU: thanks to a prime minister in Boris John- son or Dominic Raab, Corbyn will probably get his Brexit. Steven Fielding Is it too late for Jeremy Corbyn to back a second referendum? The Labour leader has always been hostile to the EU. He voted for Britain to leave what was then the EEC in the 1975 referendum and, like many of his generation on the left, always saw the institution as a "capitalist club" maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 30 MAY 2018 11 NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 29 MAY 2019 11 LETTERS & EDITORIAL maltatoday MaltaToday, MediaToday Co. Ltd, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 MANAGING EDITOR: SAVIOUR BALZAN EXECUTIVE EDITOR: MATTHEW VELLA DEPUTY EDITOR: PAUL COCKS Tel: (356) 21 382741-3, 21 382745-6 • Fax: (356) 21 385075 Website: www.maltatoday.com.mt E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt Mikiel Galea AS expected, last weekend's MEP elec- tions awarded four European Parliamen- tary seats to Labour, and two to PN. The latter achieved its lowest-ever percent- age in a European election, while the gap between the two parties has widened to 42,000. This is a disastrous result for the PN for many reasons. Delia must be regret- ting his attempt to brand the election a 'referendum on abortion'; but, even more keenly, he is probably regretting Joseph Muscat's more politically astute strategy of branding it a 'choice between [himself] and Adrian Delia'. Both these assertions are equally wrong – it was, effectively, a European election. Nonetheless, the PN's defeat is also a rejection of its campaign strategies, and the umpteenth rejection of the once monolithic Nationalist Party as a serious government-in-waiting. Yet the writing had been on the wall for some time. Not only did the party's internal factionalism spill out even fur- ther into the open during this campaign, but Delia's team was openly criticised by some of its own supporters from the unveiling of the very first billboard. This should have been expected, as the PN chose to fight this electoral bat- tle with strategies that had already been roundly defeated in 2017. Hence the disil- lusionment: the point of Adrian Delia's surprise win in the PN leadership race was precisely because he had promised to deliver a 'New Way'. This, he has evi- dently failed to do. Inauspiciously, Delia's 'Septem Hor- ribilis' – the week in which his leadership qualities were tested electorally for the first time - is expected to be further wors- ened by the local council elections result: yet another occasion for Adrian Delia's detractors to sharpen their long knives. Under the circumstances, it is the im- mediate reaction of anybody witnessing the PN's result in this week's EP elections to expect the resignation of its leader. Calls were duly made, but Adrian Delia has decided to stay on despite advice from other, less committed, quarters. There is no proviso in the PN statute that compels him to do otherwise. As such, his decision must be accepted. De- lia will not voluntarily resign. What remains to be seen is how the Nationalist Party will respond to this state of affairs. It would be futile to deny, however, that the problems facing the PN go far beyond its leadership issues, or even this result in itself. Delia may yet be persuad- ed to step down, and could face a vote of confidence in the council. But this, in itself, will not deliver the PN from the situation it now finds itself in. We have two significant, visible fac- tions inside the PN, one nominally 'led' by those who still rally behind former leader Simon Busuttil's banner of 'good governance'; and the other aligning itself with Delia's proposed 'New Way'. Certainly, the re-election of incum- bents Roberta Metsola and David Casa underlines the resilience of the former. It would be unwise to interpret their suc- cess solely as a 'two-fingered salute' to the Delia faction – as Jason Azzopardi has suggested (more evidence of the increasingly public nature of the fight). Not all the combined 50,000 who voted for Metsola and Casa can be 'claimed' by either side. One cannot discount that they were elected also on the strength of their personal campaigns, or that they were simply preferred to other candidates for other reasons. Nonetheless, it is an open secret that Delia backed Frank Psaila for the second seat. The fact that he failed to convince the electorate must be added to his politi- cal failures in this election. But this takes the PN no closer to a solution. The fact remains that neither faction has the strength and guaranteed support needed to take full control of the party: not unless someone can bridge both factions – which, at this stage, ap- pears unlikely. Yet something must be done to iron out an internal problem that has now dragged on far too long. Delia himself hinted at the reason in his concession speech. It is important to have a strong Opposition for the sake of the country… not just for the Opposition party. In this current state, however, the PN will remain Malta's largest second party, but without ever being significant enough to take government. It will remain, like it was destined to be under Simon Busuttil, a strong minority party uninterested in coalition-building (especially now that third parties have failed to gain traction). And unless it also discovers new issues and areas from which to assemble a truly new political platform… it will be condemned forever to a minority-party status. If the PN wants to resign itself to this status – pursuing a simply "anti-Labour" ethos, unable to resolve its internal strug- gle between social liberalism and ultra- conservatism, etc. – it will enjoy a long time in Opposition. Soul-searching and head-rolling often go hand in hand in politics. But the PN's fate is sealed. Unless it effects a turna- round in spirit, ethos and rediscovers its raison d'être, the party will be doomed to fade into oblivion. Nor can a new leader just expect 'busi- ness as usual' in the PN after this result. If the PN wishes to reinvent itself, it must truly discover a 'new way'. The PN truly needs a 'New Way'