We shouldn’t really be incredulous because the government could not foresee the fall-out from selling EU membership for cash

We’re not thinking straight when we’re amazed at that, are we?

These are the very same individuals who campaigned against EU membership because they were convinced it would be the end of Malta, and that our destiny was to remain a fortress rock, isolated in the Mediterranean and trading in the Maltese lira.

Joseph Muscat, now our prime minister, actually LED the campaign against membership for his master Alfred Sant. He ran a weekly programme on Super One TV telling us about the horrors of EU membership and how we would all end up destitute and over-run by Sicilians taking our jobs.

As for Louis Grech, he was challenged by a television interviewer during the election campaign about whether he voted for or against EU membership in the 2003 referendum. After some humming and hawing – because let’s face it, when you’re a Laburist pretending to be liberal and progressive, you’ve got your back against the wall with a question like that; whether you say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, you’re going to get in the neck, and deservedly – admitted to having voted against membership.

When pushed to say why he voted No, Grech replied that he thought EU membership would be bad for Air Malta.

And these are the people who are running the country now. Here you have a man who, when already in his late 50s, had the frighteningly, madly poor judgement, the closed-circuit vision, to take a decision on something as fundamental and far-reaching as EU membership for Malta and its present and future generations on the basis of how it would affect the national airline ONLY.

And then we are surprised because they thought they could sell EU passports for cash, as though in a vacuum, with no reaction from other member states, their press and their citizens – to say nothing of our own. Incredible, really – incredible that we should be surprised.

I repeat: THESE INDIVIDUALS CAMPAIGNED AGAINST EU MEMBERSHIP BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT IT WOULD SPELL THE END OF US. Expect nothing better from anyone with such lousy judgement. The only thing they are expert at is playing into the weaknesses of individuals whose votes they want, homing in on their Achilles’s heel with the accuracy of sociopaths and flattering and fawning.