Malta: GDP per capita has DOUBLED with EU membership

Look at this graph which has just been published by the World Economic Forum, showing GDP per capita in Malta from 1980 to 2013.

After years of bumping along in the doldrums, and of not even being ranked during the Golden Years of Labour (1980 to 1987 on the graph), growth in GDP per capita begins to pick up significantly as Malta makes the changes required in preparation for EU membership, and then literally soars to double the figure, post membership.

And who did The People vote in as prime minister in 2013, on the basis that he has better economic and political judgment than his rivals?

Joseph Muscat, who fought tooth and claw against EU membership, refused to vote for it, and campaigned like the blazes to persuade us that EU membership would spell the destruction of Malta.

If our current prime minister – in all his economic and policy-making brilliance – had had his way, we would still be bumping along the bottom right there.