Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1504697
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 30 JULY 2023 9 INTERVIEW to that of government government, or the party, that actually wields power. And what I think has hap- pened, over the decades, is that: political parties have grown accustomed to 'win- ning'... and 'winning BIG'. Un- like the situation in the 1970s and 1980s – when there was regular alternation of power, between Labour and PN; and the electoral margins were al- ways very small – we are now used to a situation where one, or the other party, wins with an enormous majority... and stays in power, for a very long time. And in practice, both po- litical parties have come to learn – in Labour's case, by studying, and emulating, the PN's 25-year 'winning streak' – that... in order to 'win big', you need to have certain lob- bies on your side. Otherwise, you don't gain power. Simple as that, really... In the 1990s, for instance, there was this mantra that the business lobby – and the con- struction lobby, in particular – was 'behind the Nationalist Party'; and that this accounted for the PN's consistent elector- al victories, over such a long period of time. So the mentality within the Labour Party also shifted in that direction. They started reasoning that: 'Now, we need to have those people on board; we need to be pro-business; we need to have the support of the construction and development lobby', and so on... But the problem is that these lobbies - which have been wielding their own power, for a very long time – serve their own interest, at the end of the day. And their interest, is not the public interest. Now: government has to try and find a balance, between those interests. And if this bal- ance is not found.... To conclude that sentence with a quote from your last ar- ticle: "the bond of trust will be broken, and chaos will take its place." Right? [Nods] Isn't there also an irony in all this, though? For decades, the Labour Party has always projected the image that it is the 'champion of the worker': especially the 'small' worker ['Iż-żghir']. Do you think this ideological shift you have just described – towards be- ing more 'pro-business' – has caused Labour to drift away from the very people it is sup- posed to represent? Well, I think that the idea of 'Iż-Żghir', in general – and everything it used to repre- sent: the vulnerable, the un- protected, the exploited, etc. - has completely gone 'off the map', in today's political dis- course. Nobody speaks of 'the work- ers', anymore.... and I think that's partly because the Mal- tese people themselves don't really identify as 'workers' an- ymore, either; and even less, as 'Iż-Żghir'. Today's definition of 'Iż- Żghir' is no longer the same. Today, the vulnerable, unpro- tected and exploited workers are mostly Pakistanis, Nepa- lese, Bangladeshis, etc. And we don't care about them, be- cause they don't have a vote... and they're not 'Maltese'. That, at any rate, is the per- ception; and as you can see, there's this latent sense of rac- ism in it, as well. In reality, however, the vast majority of Maltese people ARE actually 'workers'; even if they don't use that word to ac- tually describe themselves. Be- cause we are no longer talking about 'blue-collar workers', versus 'white collar workers'... in today's reality, a teacher, or a Civil Service office-clerk, is just as much of a 'worker', as a builder, or a factory employee. What many people don't seem to realise, however, is that – with the system as it is – even though they might feel that they are in a better posi- tion, than they were before... they're actually worse off. Because the level of exploita- tion we are witnessing, in this country, is much bigger, too. At the end of the day, we have adopted a 'deregulat- ed', and highly 'liberal' (in the economic sense of the word) model, that has had the effect of leaving workers – all work- ers – highly vulnerable, to be- ing exploited. So I think the problem with the Labour Party, today – though it actually started be- fore it even came to power, in 2013 – is that, in its bid to overturn a 25-year losing streak... it came to the con- clusion that 'liberal' economic policies, were the 'key to elec- toral success'. And as a result, it moved away from the old mantras of 'defending worker's rights'; to- wards a new mantra of 'defend- ing the liberal economic mod- el', instead. And personally, I think that was a mistake. Because there was nothing wrong with the party's [core Socialist] princi- ples. In fact, most of the princi- ples that Malta's Labour Party holds, are effectively the same principles held by the vast ma- jority of this country, anyway. And they are so deeply in- grained in our national psyche, that even the Nationalist Party – when it came into power in 1987 – did not make any rad- ical changes, from the way the Labour Party had conceived the welfare state, in the preced- ing decades. Social services? Not only did they keep all the existing ben- efits, but they even enlarged on them, in some cases. Free healthcare, education, and so on? The Nationalists never touched any of that; they ac- tually invested more, in all of them. Even the Nationalists, then, could see that those principles are in line with what the Mal- tese people want. They just need to be applied a little bet- ter, perhaps; and attuned with the social changes that are tak- ing place. For example: one of the mis- takes Mintoff made [in the 1970s], was that he managed to create this very broad middle class; but then, he did not see that the aspirations of that new 'middle-class' had changed, from what they were before. Now: admittedly, these are things that – as we all know - become very evident, with hindsight. But it also applies to what is happening today. You have to be aware of – and re- spond to - the people's aspira- tions, if you want to retain their trust... One last quote from your ar- ticle. You also warned that: "What's at stake is much more than what appears at first glance. The effects go beyond what can be measured by electoral gains and losses." Can you expand on that? What level of fall-out do you envis- age for the Labour Party... and what (if anything) can it do to turn the tide? Don't get me wrong: I still be- lieve that the Labour Party can be an agent of positive change, for Malta. But I also think that, after 10 years of government, what the Labour GOVERN- MENT [as distinct from 'par- ty'] needs to do, right now, is have a bit of a 'pause'. It needs to hit the 'pause' but- ton; regroup; and think about everything that has happened, over the past 10 years. Because a lot of things happened in that time, you know. And after such a long period in power... I mean, you do tend to lose your- self, along the way. So they need to stop; discuss; and draw up a way forward, at least to the next election. And the questions that need to be asked, include: what are the principles that we are going to follow? How are we going to make those principles work? How are we going to communi- cate them to the people? How are we going to create a discus- sion: both within the govern- ment, and within the party? Because the one thing that the Labour Party definitely needs to work on, is the separa- tion between 'government' and 'party'. The Labour Party's fate cannot be tied to the fate of the Labour government. The gov- ernment needs to be kept on its toes, by the party.... and at the end of the day, the government is there to serve the people of this country: according to the principles, and the programme, established by the party. And none of that can possibly happen, in practice, if there is no actual distinction between the two...