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8 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 7 OCTOBER 2020 ANALYSIS THERE is logic in Labour's direct appeal to the Delia faction on the aftermath of the resounding victory of Bernard Grech: Labour is wary of a poll rebound that could be inevitable if he manages to reunite the PN around him, a precondi- tion for any future gains among M.O.R. voters. A trust boost for Grech in the unified PN cohort could give him traction in his long-term goal of narrowing the gap with Labour and dismiss the perception that the PN is a dead weight. So playing the migration card to exac- erbate the splits in the PN (and not only because Delia has legitimised such sen- timents in his party) can make it tricky to rebut Robert Abela's simplistic "full up" argument when a PN leader needs a poll boost. This explains Grech's un- willingness to engage on this issue by passing the buck on a 'national confer- ence' to be organised by the party to discuss this issue. But by issuing official statements de- crying the election of Grech for being a part of the "pro-migrant" faction aligned to Busuttil, Labour may have gone over- board for a number of reasons. 1. Attacking a new leader immediately through an aggressive, official state- ment instead of congratulating him is inelegant and comes across as petty and tribal Instead of elegantly congratulating Bernard Grech upon his election as PN leader and auguring a healthy confron- tation, Labour went overboard in at- tacking the new leader. While it is not surprising that political parties exploit divisions in the other party to their ad- vantage, they normally rely on spin doc- tors and the party media to stir trouble on the other side. Even under Muscat the PL played the game more elegant- ly, by officially keeping a distance from PN's internal troubles while stoking the fires through party media and social media networks. In fact, Muscat had invited and met Adrian Delia at the PL headquarters upon his election as PN leader in 2017. Abela has also now invit- ed Grech for a meeting… but only after his party issued a bellicose statement immediately after his election. 2. Support for Grech among party members was overwhelming. The ar- gument that the elite has overturned rank and file party members is now bankrupt By appealing directly to the Delia fac- tion, Labour is disrespecting the will of the vast majority of Nationalist mem- bers who support Grech. Instead of recognising the democratic choice of PN members, Labaour derided Grech's triumph as a victory of the party estab- lishment: "The PN's establishment has won, the same one that was discarded by the people in one election after the other… this election has confirmed the division that exists between the factions." But Labour ignores the fact that Grech won over two votes for each one Delia obtained, in a resounding re- unification of those warring factions, and not just restricted to the so-called Busuttil faction. Even from a strategic angle the scale of Grech's victory makes any major gains for Labour among the cohort of Delia supporters unlikely. Openly attacking the new PN leader could have the in- tended effect of reinforcing unity in the PN in the face of Labour's interference and encourage Grech to offer Delia an olive branch to cement this new-found party unity. 3. Labour needs an interlocutor in difficult COVID-19 times While passionate debate and confron- tation are an essential part of democrat- ic politics, the leader of the Opposition also occupies a constitutional role with which the Prime Minister is expected to engage and consult. Offering an ol- ive branch could be Abela's silent rev- olution if he had to ditch practically all figures associated with Panamagate and other ongoing scandals, thereby remov- ing the obstacles to cross-party cooper- ation in addressing the challenges faced by the country during a time of eco- nomic difficulties. Strategically it could make more sense for Labour to offer an olive branch to Grech, as this would put him in a position of difficulty in recon- ciling the more intransigent factions in his party with more moderate elements. 4. By playing the migration card to attract Delia loyalists, Labour may end up attracting to it ideologically incompatible elements Before 2013 Labour did contribute to the PN's internal haemorrhage by ap- pealing to social liberals whose views were often compatible with Muscat's version of market friendly social lib- eralism.But the attempt to play up the migration card by deceptively identify- ing Grech with "the faction of Busuttil, who agrees that immigrants are brought to Malta" risks giving the impression that Labour is becoming a dump where any rejected Nationalist can feel com- fortable, irrespective of any ideological considerations. This strategy is ques- tionable as it may attract voters who are ideologically on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Labour has already attracted the support of former Nationalists with a Robert Abela is pumping iron on immigration in a bid to attract disillusioned Delia loyalists. JAMES DEBONO presents six reasons why Labour may be going overboard in appealing to the prejudices of the Delia faction in order to shoot down the new PN leader Labour's migration tirade: Inelegant

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