Yesterday, I finally got hold of the newly elected Labour Party MEP, Thomas Bajada. I had been trying to speak to him for more than a week because he is now a very significant newcomer in Labour politics.
Thomas Bajada clinched the third Labour Party seat in the European parliament unexpectedly due to his relatively low-key political campaign compared to his two colleagues, who made big and well-funded campaigns, as they propped up Joseph Muscat. Also of interest is that Thomas Bajada was the preferred candidate of Prime Minister Robert Abela.
However, what currently distinguishes most Thomas Bajada from his fellow colleagues Alex Agius Saliba and Daniel Ellul is that only he from the Labour Party delegation voted in favor of the re-appointment of Roberta Metsola as President of the European Parliament. Prime Minister Robert Abela also advised for a vote in favour of her re-election.
Basically, Thomas Bajada is in a very interesting situation. He is following the party’s line by dissociating from Joseph Muscat and taking a cooperative approach towards the Maltese President of the European Parliament, yet, his position is in a minority in terms of Labour Party votes compared considering his two other colleagues have opposing positions.
So, I asked Thomas Bajada some questions and he replied to them by speaking the Labour Party’s book, which you may have heard already, however he also told me some other things, one of which he asked to keep in confidence. I have no problem with that, hoping that next time round, he’ll trust me enough to give me another comment. The other interesting thing which he said which is not from the Labour Party’s book is that he is too new in the Party to take strong positions on local issues that are related to the Labour Party. I was asking him what is his personal position on the rule of law crisis and whether he thinks that Joseph Muscat should be rehabilitated in the Party or face justice.
He only said “we have to move forward” which is enough to affirm his position for a literate audience, but is then short in explaining this dissociation from Joseph Muscat in clear terms to a Labour audience. He may very well be given the benefit of the doubt for being too new to be assertive over a crucial national issue in which he diverges from his colleagues. On the other hand, Thomas Bajada is on the right track of history in a pragmatic manner given that the other two, Daniel Attard and Alex Agius Saliba are playing a losing opportunistic game. Alex Agius Saliba will look absolutely ridiculous, and surprisingly lonely in ten years time as the demographic that supports Joseph Muscat keeps shrinking (Alex Agius Saliba never played chess).
I also asked Thomas Bajada what he thinks of the Party’s leadership vacuum and he said that he thinks that the Labour Party should strengthen its structures come its deputy-leadership election in September. I didn’t press him to explain what he meant by that, but generally this means that the party should be more active and more autonomous from the micro-management of the leader.
Thomas Bajada doesn’t have many different positions from Labour’s official line, and in fact he also voted against the latest European Union’s aid package to Ukraine. His main distinguishing characteristic from the others is that he is trying to be a decent person among a clique of criminals while not alarming them too much about how different he is from them.
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