The issue of divorce has brought to light the contradictions and huge inadequacies of the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party. Today I’ll concentrate on the latter – since one would usually expect socialist parties to recognize that the state cannot allow people to remain in a legal limbo capriciously. I’ll write about the PN later on… letters to The Times by the party’s conservative core (without which PN will remain under 50%+1 votes) angry that some Nationalists aren’t following their party’s motto ‘Religio et Patria’ are really amusing.
Back to Labour. Well, truth be said, they are not much different from the Nationalists. They have become a huge skip quite some time ago now. Yes, maybe the PN knows how to behave like a skip better than Labour. Before anyone accuses me of cheap shots, here is why I call PN and PL large skips – of mixed waste in fact. Before the arrival of recycling banks – in which waste is separated according to type, waste used to go into skips unsorted. Well that’s the aim of both PN and PL – get as much support as possible, not on the strength of policies, principles and values, those just don’t matter as long as the magic number of one more vote than the other skip is achieved. Eileen Montesin of ‘run rabbit run’ fame is just one proof of the skip theory. Another proof is miraculous appearances of dyed-in-the-wool Nationalists at Labour events, if there is a whiff of a possible change in government.
The skip theory explains Labour’s total confusion and absence from the divorce issue – on the one hand it wants the pro-divorce vote, on the other hand it does not want to lose it’s not insignificant support of supporters who vote Labour not because of some socialist or social democratic or whatever label Joseph and co. decide to use, but just because they were born Labourites (maybe someone should study if there is a ‘labour’ or ‘nationalist’ gene.) The divorce issue is too big for them to handle. Labour does not want to scare away their 3-in-one festa-Santa Perpetwa-Labour fanatics, and at the same time it wants us to believe that the Labour party is the home of progressively-minded people. Divorce is a real political issue unlike sterile debates about ‘inrazznu l-prezz tal-gass’ which any politician coming from whichever party or from any slice of the political spectrum can spout for hours on end. PL and PN speak about things which technocrats can manage. They do so because they do not take sides based on principles – they don’t want to scare away Peppi and Peppa.
Joseph – for whom tonnes of incense smoke with all the ‘dear leader’ rhetoric literally pours out of ONE studios – wants his cake and to eat it. The divorce debate has uncovered Labour’s mask – it is another PN – a party based on nothingness. They cannot bear it that there are others who are really and truly progressive and have a modern vision of politics. Some Labour supporters expect others, AD included, not to criticise them, they think it is now their turn to win the election and cannot bear anyone standing in their 50%+1 target. The same ‘divine right to govern’ mentality which pervades the other party/skip.
Labour rants on and on that the only alternative is voting Labour…anyone with even one shrivelled brain cell should realise that the only solution is neither voting for PN nor for PL. They never learn. They need to be forced to implement the reforms we need in this country. If you want change, if you are open-minded and want to tell PN and PL where to get off, you will vote AD, at the end of the day you have nothing to lose. Divorce has confirmed that the PN and PL are just the sides of the same coin.
Ralph Cassar 