Oh, if only they knew what we suspect is going on behind the electorate’s back

The Law Society (Britain) reports in its Gazette (3 February) that:

Following sharp criticism both domestically and abroad, the implementation of a controversial Maltese citizenship law has been delayed indefinitely.

This is because, being lawyers, they go by the rule of law. And because Malta is an EU member state and not a third-world corrupt banana republic, they also assume that the Maltese government abides by the rule of law and feels its answerable and accountable to the Great Maltese Public.

They assume that because the legal notice with amendments to the original law was not published, then no passports were being sold in secrecy as per that original law, that no passports are being sold at all.

Yet Henley & Partners have said quite brazenly that they are receiving applications. They would not be receiving applications unless they are also processing them. If they were not processing them, they would say, ‘Sorry, no applications for now as we can’t process them until the law has been amended.’

What did that Chinese ‘investor’ fly in for on his private jet for a day? The government told us that it was to apply for a Maltese passport. But you do not have to apply in person while physically present on the island, so that was a cavalier waste of time, effort and fuel which we can’t possibly believe unless we are 100% gullible or badly informed.

You have to be physically present to take your oath of allegiance and to collect your passport personally, which means that these are probably the real reasons that man came over, guzzling fuel and money, for a few hours.

Ordinarily, he would have been able to do both at the Maltese embassy of his choice anywhere in the world, but not if the process is clandestine.

This is what we have come to: we don’t trust our own government because we feel instinctively that we can’t, that we are being cheated and lied to by those who we put in charge. What a sorry state of affairs.

Much of it stems from the fact that selling passports was the Labour Party’s much-vaunted ‘costed roadmap’ in the electoral campaign, but it would never tell the public – because the public didn’t bother to press on it in all the excitement of Change – that selling passports was what it was all about. So it sprang this on the electorate when it was too late for the electorate to do anything about it except protest while the government presses on regardless without a mandate to do this.