Interest in buying Maltese citizenship declines as London prepares to be wrested out of the EU

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that agencies selling Maltese citizenship are concerned because enquiries are slowing down since the British vote to leave the European Union, and that some applicants have even said they are no longer interested.

When Muscat announced the scheme three years ago and said that the aim was “to attract talent to Malta”, I had written that nobody in that income bracket is ever going to be remotely interested in living in Malta, except for tax purposes – and they don’t need Maltese citizenship to do that. On the contrary, Maltese citizenship would work against them.

The ultimate aim of all those Russians, Chinese and Middle Eastern people who planned on buying Maltese citizenship, I wrote, would be solely to live in London unmolested by migration papers and visas. They wouldn’t be going to London to sponge off benefits, of course, but because living in London is far more fun and interesting than living in Malta when you are in that bracket and have the money to live comfortably in Europe’s leading metropolis.

I have yet to meet anybody non-Maltese with bucketloads of cash to spare who says that living in Malta is SUCH FUN and SO GLAMOROUS and FASCINATING. The more honest among them tell the truth: that it’s deadly dull and most days they could top themselves, surviving only by flying out of the island every month or every week. Most of them are here for practical reasons like tax and spend as little time physically present as they possibly can.

The only rich people who enjoy Malta terribly are Maltese people with little to no imagination, who behave as though they do not exist unless they are being observed and admired by the familiar faces who know them. Take them out of Malta and they shrivel up and die, not knowing where to begin.

The most they can manage is a short holiday, safe in the knowledge that they’ll be back on the rock where they are somebody and not nobody. But if you’re a billionaire from China or a multi-millionaire from Azerbaijan, you’re hardly likely to think that the apex of fun is motoring your yacht from the Ta’ Xbiex marina to Comino, tying it up there among the boats of 100 other people you know, and spending the day in hot noise among people whose faces have been familiar to you for the last 30 or 40 years.

Of course they want Maltese citizenship so that they can live in London. Maybe now Identity Malta and Henley & Partners can push Paris instead. The Chinese and Americans love it.

“So, David, have you thought about buying Maltese citizenship? I can get you a good discount.”