UPDATED: When did the Labour Party accept the result of the EU membership referendum? It never did.
This would make a great money-box for two-cent coins
Malta Today reports on the Labour leader’s interview at a campaign event earlier tonight:
The issue of whether Malta should have joined the European Union or not ended when the Labour Party recognised the result of the 2003 referendum. According to Labour leader and Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, the citizens who opposed Malta’s accession accepted the reality when the PL won the 2004 MEP elections.
“Today you still find those who quarrel about Malta’s Independence or becoming a Republic. So I don’t find it surprising there are those who still argue about the EU. But in reality, I believe that the issue for these people ended when the PL accepted the EU referendum,” Muscat said.
The Labour Party never accepted the result of the EU referendum. Alfred Sant, was Labour Party leader in 2004, still claims that the Yes vote was in a minority because it was outnumbered by the combined No votes and abstentions. Sant never changes his opinions. When he forms an opinion, it’s locked in for life.
All the Opposition (Labour) MPs had voted AGAINST EU membership in parliament despite the referendum result and EVEN DESPITE THE GENERAL ELECTION RESULT WHICH FOLLOWED.
In L-Orizzont of 25 June 2003, Joseph Muscat – who replaced Sant – wrote in his regular column:
Nistqarr li hadt pjacir li l-Grupp Parlamentari Laburista ddecieda li jivvota kontra t-Trattat tas-Shubija ta’ Malta fl-Unjoni Ewropea.
Kont ili gimghat shah nikteb favur li l-partit jiehu din l-posizzjoni, jigifieri li jivvota kontra. B’din il-posizzjoni, qeghdin inkunu fidili lejn dawk kollha li vvotaw ghall-Partit Laburista. Hrigna ta’ nies ta’ kelma ma’ dawn il-persuni.
This was after the Yes vote won the referendum and after the general election result confirmed it. In translation, Joseph Muscat’s words are:
I have to say that I was satisfied with the Labour parliamentary group’s decision to vote against Malta’s accession agreement with the European Union.
For weeks I have been writing that the Labour Party should do exactly this – vote against it. In this way, we were loyal to all those who voted Labour, and behaved as men of our word.
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2003, Joseph Muscat:
“Minn naha tieghi jien iddecidejt li mhux se nkun qed nivvota ghax ma rridx incappas idejja ma’ referendum li huwa ghodda politika u li ma ghandu xejn nazzjonali fih.
Il-vot inpoggih fi frame.”
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2014/05/a-timely-reminder-3/
Did Joseph Muscat even accept the referendum?
They never did, and they’ve been working to inculcate a perception that there is an alternative to the EU for Malta (Russia, China, Azerbaijan, etc.).
They will test core EU issues until the Maltese believe that they need to blame it on being part of the EU for their sufferings.
The truth is that Malta flourished when it joined the EU and adopted the Euro and thrived when the rest of the world was in disarray.
The only difference is that there was the PN in government. But the MLP will re-write history as it suits it best, as it has always done.
So true
I think what he is trying to say is that since the Labour party won a majority of votes in the MEP elections of 2004, it was then that Malta accepted to join the EU, and, you see, as we predicted, it was Labour which voted in favour of the EU and Malta is in the EU thanks to Alfred Sant and Joseph Muscat.
The tendency to re-write history reveals the far-right attitude of the prime minister.
“Quarrel”. Is this some moronic journalist translating from the equally moronic PM’s “jiggieldu”?
Muscat said the same to Lou Bondi when running for leadership, except that he reverses the concept. The interview where xtaq isir prim ministru.
In his words, ‘Ir-rizultat tal-elezzjoni ta’ dik is-sena’ ghalqet il-kwistjoni’
And don’t give me the konferenza generali having proclaimed Labour’s preemptive refusal to recognise the result; that only an election would decide matters.
Muscat should be asked flatly whether Partnership won or lost the referendum.
They’re that perverse.
The grade A idiot strikes again.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-05-05/news/bendy-bus-price-460000-if-scrapped-4863361024/
What he doesn’t mention is that he had to hire a fleet of another 45 buses and which still haven’t made it to the islands. But he doesn’t really care does he, as long as he screwed Arriva, ghax hadhom b’xejn qal. Ara vera bazwetta dar-ragel.
And since when does a minister decide to lower a price simply because the one who made the bid didn’t manage to sell the buses? 150,000 Euros off the agreed price ghax miskin il-kuntrattur didn’t manage. The original price was already a scam, imagine a further discount, screwing the other bidders to get it off his back. Or maybe get the ‘contractor’ off his back.
I half expect the other bidders to sue. I definitely would.
It will be hilarious reading Charles Flores et al. They’ll obviously blame Austin Gatt who managed to sign a deal they would have never come nowhere near concluding.
Indeed 46 million in subsidies later, and we’re still without a full fleet, a contract and bus drivers taken out of their neanderthal deep freeze instead.
Times of Malta mum. So Abela Garrett gets extra petrol to drive to university.
Meantime the pressure to get Marsaxlokk started goes international. If Konrad doesn’t manage, Malta’s rating on the dot. Deadline being 11 months away, I understand commissioning of that sort of plant takes a good four months.
In the same amount of time a PN government had dismantled the old lobby and signed all agreements, throwing in a dockyard, redeploying 1000+ workers, signing with another investor for good measure.
The one before that Lawrence Gonzi, well it had to be him, had sorted out the mess left by Alfred Sant when that other know it all decided to turn Mater Dei into a general hospital, signed Malta into the Euro, kicked off the BWSC project, which thankfully will be the thing to power this country and launched Lufthansa Technik.
Oh and the planet was getting used to the term credit crunch.
Idiots.
It’s actually immaterial. EU membership is beneficial as it keeps an eye on government spendings and switch off red lights when a government goes into the danger zone. Moreso after Greece. But ultimately, a government will be judged by the economy and not when it accepted this or that, the tangible economy, particularly spending power and employment, probably in that order.
So by your reasoning, PN should have won the last election. But no! People did not vote on the premise of sound economy etc.
Read this article, published today on TOM which gives a very good description, especially at the end, of why PL won the last election :
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140506/opinion/Soldiers-of-fortune.517846
What is immaterial? The deception? The lies? The rewriting of history?
On the contrary there is much food for thought. The government and the Labour Party is systematically eroding the belief in the EU.
Eventually, it will have garnered enough public support to make some bold moves against continuing membership.
And it is the “floaters” and the “switchers” or whatever you want to call yourselves who would have enabled this to happen. All because they did not stop to critically evaluate the shallow utterances of the MLP and get to what Muscat has been truly saying.
The hypocrisy is not immaterial: Sant froze membership and voted against it. Muscat was similarly adamant against Malta joining the EU. At first blush, today they appear to have accepted Malta’s place within the EU. However, that is only a ploy. There is more than meets the eye as with everything else that has happened over the past year or so.
I am sorry to say that only the blind see this as immaterial.
Nice bit of doublespeak there, Floater.
It doesn’t matter what Joseph Muscat thought of the EU, read what he thinks and what he can think, what matters is cash and jobs.
I can see the EU blamed for every move he’ll make to undermine Malta’s membership and the Union itself.
You are spot on with regards to Alfred Sant. Muscat imitates his mentor. The Labour Skip Party never apologised to the Maltese people for the years of suffering and hardship under the Mintoffian reign of terror.
Expecting them to accept the EU referendum result is asking too much from them. Labour twists historical events in its favour; it always does.
Joseph Muscat’s lying machine is running at full speed.
Well well, Alfred Sant is the one and only person in the Malta Labour Party who can authoritatively answer that question.
And the sooner he does it the better.
I watched TVM HD short news at four yesterday:
Why do they put lousy small grainy photos of Simon Busuttil (ON HD TV)and posed and retouched pictures of our fat hairless prime minister looking seven years younger and 20 kilos lighter?
This is the picture of the other prime minister: http://292fc373eb1b8428f75b-7f75e5eb51943043279413a54aaa858a.r38.cf3.rackcdn.com/19b6a5f29dd88a490bc5cab0c1b6250e560993433-1319043975-4e9f0387-620×348.jpg
and here’s the other prime minister again: http://www.gov.mt/en/PublishingImages/a%20DR%20JOSEPH%20MUSCAT.jpg
The PN PR people should make it a point to supply the TVM newsroom with decent photos of Simon Busuttil. No need to Photoshop them and there’s no need for Busuttil to pose sitting partially on his desk with hands protecting his family jewels.
We’re back to the 80s with this kind of news.
The hands should never protect the family jewels in a posed photograph. It transmits vulnerability. If you’re sitting, it’s hands on knees. If you’re standing, it’s hands at your side.
Incidentally, what’s with Michelle Muscat’s splayed finger pose? Is she trying to show off HER family jewels, the real ones?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140506/opinion/Soldiers-of-fortune.517846
Sincerely I become sick when I read these articles. Just thinking that this man is now prime minister.
I remember Eddie Fenech Adami saying that there will be a time when the Labour Party would take credit for making Maltag a member of the E.U. I think that time has arrived.
Someone must have told the Prime Minister that “he who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” (George Orwell, 1984)