Ever since former Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne resigned and was relegated to the backbenches after being arraigned in court in the Vitals case, the Cabinet of Ministers has become castrated. Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne was once the leading voice of internal opposition within the Labour Cabinet. However, with his departure, Prime Minister Robert Abela now faces little resistance. Internal disputes have been reduced to the myopic debate on how to maintain electoral support as the Prime Minister undermines it with his actions.
Despite the fact that most of the Cabinet Ministers don’t want to be associated with the reform on Magisterial Inquiries, none of them are doing an effort to oppose this. A sense of resignation and complacency is dominant with most of them only concerned about their political careers and current positions.
A case in point is Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Ian Borg whose positions on the Judiciary and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola publicly contrasted with the position of the Party and the Prime Minister himself. He disagrees with the current reform on Magisterial Inquiries, but prefers not to speak about it. His opposition is politely stated internally without putting much resistance as he commits to the Prime Minister internally, whilst trying to avoid showing any public support to the government’s proposed reforms.
This is no public secret. You can look at the Deputy Prime Minister’s Facebook profile where his support for the Prime Minister is generic and not tied to any of his policies, unlike many of his colleagues and other MPs who are desperately ingratiating themselves with the Premier by publicly supporting his stupid and anti-democratic decisions to protect Labour Party’s criminals.
Clearly, the Deputy Premier is adopting a strategy of political survival as he knows very well that Labour’s current political behaviour is damaging to its legacy. Whether this strategy will pay any dividends is unclear. Chris Fearne adopted a similar strategy under Muscat’s administration and it only resulted him in a resignation and a Court case about a fraud of Joseph Muscat’s own making.
Admittedly, the position of Labour insiders who disagree with the current actions of the Prime Minister is not very easy. Cyrus Engerer left the Labour Party and started a party of his own and barely anyone is noticing. Lacking a Labour stalwart that raises his head against the Prime Minister, Labour Party rebels and progressives feel powerless.
As someone who would prefer to see a Labour Party that is free from criminality and the Robert Abela and Joseph Muscat Devil’s Pact, I consider the Deputy Premier as someone who is abdicating from his political responsibility to the Labour Party. I’m sure that he understands what I mean by this. Most of his colleagues have already abdicated their responsibilities towards their party and they don’t care about its legacy and its future. Most of them simply want to hold on to power as long as possible to keep greasing it. Those who have a sense of responsibility will see the Party degrading and take immediate action.
The situation is very messy and without any strong voices that assert themselves, the Labour Party will continue to further decapacitate its legacy turning its current history into a story about criminal narratives. Someone should try to pull the breaks.
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