The uncivilised have won

So, those in favour of shooting migrating birds during the breeding season have won the referendum by something like 51%, which shows you just how doable it was for those opposed to the practice to win the day instead.

But they flunked it. I won’t go into the reasons why, from a purely professional perspective, because it is pointless picking over dead bones. A referendum like this is not a general election and it will not come round again so there is no learning from mistakes.

It is just the most terrible shame that more time and effort seems to have been expended on forcing the referendum, with the collection and collation of tens of thousands of signatures, and organising that side of things, than on constructing a proper campaign and building up popular enthusiasm by drawing people in with donations towards it.

My regular readers will know that I have said the same thing from the outset: that I knew in my heart – it’s not actually instinct, just a professional assessment – that the No vote was going to lose because the campaign was so disjointed, all over the place, and started way too late. The people fronting it were all wrong, and because there were no attempts at involving people, including prominent people who would have been glad to commit themselves in public had they only been asked. The campaign got off on a phenomenally wrong foot and never recovered.

For the first time, I was uncomfortable with Malta Today’s polls showing a seven-point lead for the No vote. Though they are usually quite accurate, there was something there that I couldn’t quite put my finger on and I derived no comfort from them. I also thought it was completely out of order, strategically and in other ways, for the leader of the No campaign to publish polls in his own newspaper showing how effective his campaign is. Campaign workers usually keep their commissioned polls secret, using them only as the basis on which to build further strategy, but there was a clear conflict of interest here.

All those triumphant polls served to do is make potential No voters complacent about not voting at all or voting Yes instead.

The rest of us now have every right to be angry, but again, it’s pointless picking over dead bones.