The first national animal welfare conference was a very welcome initiative, and Opposition Leader Alex Borg took the opportunity to announce his policy for a dedicated Ministry for Animal Welfare. Although his proposal was welcomed, it did not make any waves with the general public, and the Opposition Leader missed another opportunity to leave his mark.
Alex Borg is failing to disrupt the Labour Party’s political agenda, and he is failing because he is trying to emulate the Labour Party and become a better version of it instead of offering something new. I am making this argument consistently, and I am also comparing Alex Borg’s strategy with the initial strategy of Joseph Muscat as Opposition Leader, which enabled him to win the elections with a landslide.
The Labour Party in Opposition under Joseph Muscat was consistently politically disruptive, regularly proposing radical changes that were actually progressive for society: civil rights such as divorce and the removal of censorship, gay marriage, new new energy projects, lower taxes and lower energy bills, changes to local institutions, anti-corruption laws, and much more. Alex Borg seemed to get it right as soon as he was elected Opposition Leader when he launched his proposal for constitutional amendments to safeguard the environment.
Then, all of a sudden, Alex Borg stepped back and kept a low profile, and his proposals now read just like a slight improvement to the current status quo. Proposing the creation of a Ministry dedicated to Animal Welfare is progressive, but this is something that Labour can easily do and, by itself, will not change anything.
Alex Borg needs to go back to the drawing board and start pledging policies that will truly change our society and bring back values. For starters on animal welfare, Alex Borg could easily take a position against the trading of wild and exotic animals. This policy would not be radical at all and would not even hurt the Nationalist Party, as the policy was specifically drawn up to appease the criminal cliques surrounding the Prime Minister.
One thing is for sure about Alex Borg: his politics are fully shaped by a post-2019 experience, missing the fundamental crisis which has led us to this point, and he has yet to grasp the zeitgeist of change that meets the public’s expectations. As a conservative, he is turning out to be conserving Labour’s society when the people who want change are calling for a radical return to normality.
Normality will not be achieved by appearances and the status quo; it will be achieved through progressive and radical change.
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