This is what they mean by “taking our party back”: taking the Nationalist Party back to its fascist roots

Over the last several years I have noticed that the proto-fascist and neo-fascist supporters of the Nationalist Party, and similar elements within it, have become increasingly alienated by the party’s determined shift, under Eddie Fenech Adami, Lawrence Gonzi and, even more so, Simon Busuttil to a centre-left, liberal ideology.

In conversation and on social media, they were there, complaining about other races, other religions, immigrants, the decline of tradition, the loss of a glorious past and religio et patria.

It never occurred to them for one second that one of the key reasons the Nationalist Party grew enough to get into government and stay in government for all those years was because it shifted away from that narrow-minded and inward-looking proto-fascism (because it has to be called by its real name), and in so doing pulled in the votes and the real, ideological support of thousands of people who are repelled by the sort of sentiments that originally gave the party its name.

It is these people, who have felt disenfranchised by the Nationalist Party in its contemporary incarnation, and who are alienated by the 21st century, who have flocked behind Adrian Delia and “taken their party back”. It is the mid-20th century hijacking the 21st.

The displays of machismo, the shouting and growling, the bullying aggression, the Mussolini antics, the mobs of thugs, the total absence of women including the wife, the insults and threats to the media: that is all part of the neo-fascist playbook. It is no coincidence that Adrian Delia and Frank Portelli have been patting each other on the back all the way through.

This screenshot is from August 2013, just a few months after the general election that year, when Delia was already planning his take-over of the Nationalist Party and its return to (neo) fascism. He has knowingly tapped into something here, because many Maltese people of my generation and background are proto-fascists – it’s the disease of disillusioned middle age – even if they have never encountered the term and think fascists are like Hitler.

But their children’s generation is most definitely not, and this is going to be an electoral problem. I know scores of young people and the likelihood that they will even vote for, let alone campaign for, a neo-fascist party is precisely zilch.

The Nationalist Party has been hijacked by people who still think like this.