GUEST POST: ‘Who is to blame?’

This was sent in by Dire Straits.

How bad is this? And who is to blame?

This result is ecologically mad; it will have an extremely negative effect on our national political consciousness; and it will be economically damaging, though we will never be able to quantify that damage.

Let’s leave aside the direct effect of this result – the fact that, flying in the face of good ecological practice everywhere, we will continue to kill two declining species as they try to reproduce.

There is damage too to the wider environmental cause. This result demotivates everyone who tries to do anything to protect Malta’s environment, and increases people’s fatalism about the possibility of positive environmental change here.

It will also make our notoriously spineless politicians wary of relying on green support in the face of hunters and all sorts of other local bullies.

Economically, it not only means that the biggest blot on Malta’s international copybook remains, but we have just broadcast to the world the fact that we have nationally, democratically, re-endorsed it.

We make our international living by attracting people to invest or holiday here – this has just made us look a lot less attractive.

Who is to blame?

Let’s look at all the likely candidates and try and apportion the blame.

The SHOUT Campaign: they were inexperienced, disjointed, sometimes strident, and largely ineffectual; and allowing Saviour Balzan to be one of the frontmen was a big mistake; but it would be missing the point to blame them too much.

The campaigners themselves put themselves out there, worked hard, stood up to be counted. They did their best. It wasn’t good enough, but that’s not where the real fault lies.

Share of blame: 10%.

The business community: in a country so dependent on incoming travel and investment I would have expected big names and representative associations in the hospitality and even financial industry to make the point loudly that we will be further damaged by a Yes vote; that we would be, in effect, be trumpeting Malta’s least attractive feature to the world.

I’m sure many of them are against spring hunting; and I’m sure that these big boys – nearly all boys I’m afraid – weren’t too afraid of the hunters. But it seems that they were afraid of going directly against the Prime Minister.

Share of blame: 20%.

Simon Busuttil?

Simon Busuttil waited one week after Joseph Muscat announced his pro-hunting position before announcing his own.

In that time public polls – and you can assume he had access to private ones too – showed a massive pro-hunting spike, all because of Muscat’s announcement. The simple fact is that if he had announced himself against spring hunting that spike would have crystallised, and the referendum would have been dead in the water.

If this became a popularity contest between him and Joseph Muscat there was no way for the referendum to be won.

Maybe we could have wished him to sweep the electorate away, but frankly, with the people in their current Nationalist-sceptic mode, I don’t think that this was realistic.

He did the opposite as quietly as possible, the spike died away, and the No camp got its chance back. In the end it wasn’t enough, but to blame Simon Busuttil for that would be missing the point.

Share of blame: 5%

Joseph Muscat: the people’s heart was in the right place. All polls taken before the matter was politicised showed a comfortable majority against spring hunting. Yet in the end they were led to vote for the hunting lobby.

It’s disheartening that they allowed themselves to be persuaded, but there you go, we’re still growing up as a country, and we still make mistakes, especially when we are led astray.

It is Joseph Muscat who led the people away from their first instinct and towards a Yes vote. He made his position very clear at the outset and reiterated it forcefully a couple of weeks before the vote.

And it seems clear from all the reports this week, that he mobilised the party structures to push hard for a Yes vote, street leaders and all.

Share of blame: 65%

Those early polls show that we, the Maltese people, have the potential to be better than this result; but today this is where we are.

The European Court of Justice has made it clear that the spring hunting season needs to be carried out under extremely strict conditions – and this government has removed most of the real controls that did exist.

Expect the Court to get involved again; unless Karmenu Vella, Europe’s environmental Commissioner, can spike the Commission’s guns before it does so.

This too will pass. But in the meantime, what a bloody mess.