It’s time to worry. And I mean REALLY worry.
I can’t, for the life of me, understand how and why people voted to make prime minister a man who spent literally years fighting against EU membership and who then told us to vote No in the referendum, a man who took years to acknowledge that the Yes vote had won, and then only with – by his own admission – hindsight, in the belief that he had somehow undergone a profound conversion.
Even if their understanding of human psychology is so catastrophically poor, they should have picked up the clues in the electoral campaign. When asked about Malta’s EU membership, Muscat did not respond:
‘Oh, I was so wrong about that. It’s turned out to be great for Malta. The islands have been transformed, people are buzzing around with their EU passports and their euros, taking planes like buses, young people have free and open access to universities and training all over Europe, goods move in and out without customs duty or customs checks, people are ordering things on the internet and having them delivered to their door when they would ordinarily have had to go down to the post office and watch as a customs official opened the packet to see what’s inside…I wouldn’t dream of going back to all that.‘
No, instead he replied to the effect: ‘We are in the European Union now and that’s the way it’s going to be.’ In other words, tough titties and we have to put up with it. M’hemmx taghmel.
Now, most ominously, Times of Malta reports:
The Labour Party’s annual general conference this year is being held between February 3 and 9 on the theme “Malta: Maltese, European, Global”.
PL deputy leader Toni Abela said the theme also reflects a motion delegates will be requested to vote upon. The motion is being moved by the administration.
It speaks on the importance that Malta retains its identity as a European country while integrating itself with countries which were not members of the EU.
The last line sounds the alarm. If you don’t hear that alarm, you’re stone-deaf. Our identity as a European country, not as a member state of the European Union. We’ll retain our European identity but we will integrate ourselves with countries which are not members of the European Union.
The nightmare is unfolding, and defying the European Union on the sale of passports is the gateway to what comes next: integration with other countries that are not part of the EU.
Exactly one year ago, I wrote that the Labour Party’s recruitment and campaign tactics were no different to those of a cult. First followers were sent out to recruit others into the cult, by first gaining their confidence then asking ‘Would you like to meet Joseph?’ as a prelude to giving them the spiel on the new religion.
People joined because of the excitement, the sense of daring and rebellion and of belonging to something bigger than they are, of something new, with a great leader, the idea that they were part of a movement that would change the world while making them feel special and valued 24/7.
Then they ended up poisoned in a compound in the Guyana jungle, having been fed Kool-Aid spiked with cyanide, after being trapped and unable to escape.
When you lose your head, in whatever area of life, nothing good follows. And what I saw last January, February and March was a lot of Jim Jones fanatics who had lost all sense of reason and who were going to end up trapped in a jungle compound, unable to leave and frightened every day of the moment they would be asked to drink the Kool-Aid.
I didn’t think it would happen this fast.
Nobody is boasting about having voted Labour anymore. Nobody. Except for the solid core vote and those who have done so all their lives, they’ve all gone underground. If you remind them, they become embarrassed or pretend otherwise. The kindest thing to do at this stage is not to remind them. Instead, gird your loins for the upcoming battle with the European Union and our integration – note the word INTEGRATION, not cooperation – with countries that are “not in the European Union”.
I strongly advise those who are able to obtain citizenship of another EU member state, whether by parentage or long-term residence, to set matters in motion to do so.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140118/local/pl-general-conference-on-the-theme.503118#.UtssQLA1gdU
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Labour-conference-to-focus-on-Malta-s-identity-20140118
First, integration with Britian in the 50s/60s, then integration with Libya in 1979, and now integration with China?
And then they have the audicity to claim that PN politicians are traitors.
Alla maghna! Integration outside the EU and western civilisation?
Din repetizzjoni tal-politika Mintoffjana tas-70s mal-Libya, China w pajjizi ohra?
Bil-politika tal-blackmail il-Maltin mhux ser iqattaw sena ohra fil-kwiet. Dawk li jiftakkru lil-Mintoff jafu li kull Milied il-Maltin dejjem imsarnhom f’saqajhom.
Is this country the new friend of Malta or one to integrate with?
In North Korea, dissenters are also called traitors, just like the MLP calls anyone who opposes the Muscat regime.
This is a country run and managed on fear – sounds similar?
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365155890/
A must watch.
Joseph Muscat is using the same tactic with the EU like he used with Arriva.
The story of Arriva is still fresh in our minds. The tactic is a three-step process.
The first step is to demean the object. We heard only about the faults in Arriva from Labour but never the good things. The same is happening with the EU.
The second step is to find a scapegoat. In Arriva’s case the scapegoat was the bendy buses.
In the EU’s case the scapegoat is the citizenship scheme.
The third step is entering into discussions that lead to exit. As regards EU, the third step is still to come.
If we exit the EU now, Joseph’s sale-of-citizenship scheme is busted.
But integrate with which country – China? Korea? Russia? Dubai?
How is it nothing of this was mentioned in their electoral programme? Because the PL is deceitful, dishonest and made up of first-class opportunists who only care for what’s in it for themselves.
One caller on Radio 101 radio mentioned that some of the Labour MPs have changed their mobile phone numbers so they won’t be pestered by the plebs.
It was unbelievable but after the last war there wasn’t one single Nazi in Germany except , Hitlers Generals and Cabinet.
History repeats itself, this time in Malta.
You are 100% right on this one. An ex-colleague, whose dad was a Labour MP during the golden years, has, for this last month, been ranting against the EU.
Whenever I point out that even his beloved Joseph has seen the light about the EU, he quickly changes subject and goes on about how we should see the opportunities beyond EU borders.
[Daphne – They are insane. It is unbelievable how they take our current way of life for granted and have already forgotten what it was like to be trapped on a 17 x 9 mile rock with another half-million people, customs borders, travel restrictions and no hope of working or studying overseas. Madness. Do these people even know that the minute we leave the European Union, the days of postmen bringing your Amazon parcels to the door are over? It’s back to picking them up from the Customs window at the post office, while a customs officer slices the packet open, examines the contents in front of everyone else, and charges you duty. That might seem minor, but apparently it’s the minor tings that matter most.]
It will never happen. Mallia loves Lidl too much.
Manuel Mallia was in Fgura this morning talking about “il-PN jinnamra mal-bloggers” (the Nationalist Party courts bloggers, read Daphne). Well, at least the Nationalist Party has good taste.
In one of his now infamous twists of logic, he also said that it is impossible to be against a scheme in principle and yet still be open to discuss it and reach some consensus over it.
In Manuel Mallia’s world, if something is broken, you can either keep it broken or buy a new version of it. Repairing the broken item doesn’t feature.
Back to the ‘min mhux magħna kontra tagħna’ days.
This was Joseph Muscat’s only plan for generating revenue. If not this, then it’s an increase in taxes and he knows that will be his demise.
For those who gave these nitwits their vote this must be quite a wake-up call. Hope you’re ‘smelling the coffee’ now.
If Muscat wishes to boost Malta’s income, he needn’t raise taxes. He could raise tax REVENUE. That means economic growth, which is beyond his capabilities.
The Labour Party is back to: MALTA WANTS INTEGRATION
With whom this time, CHINA?
The switchers have irresponsibly switched off Malta’s European future.
You have it on yourself and your children’s heads what you have done to Malta. Hang your heads in shame.
If we had any sense, and leadership to match, we’d have been out on the streets making our voice heard. We would also be doing something about the IIP such as collecting signatures to force a referendum on the issue. This would be preparation for what will be an inevitable move away from the EU, when the Maltese people might just about get off their sorry complacent backsides to make their voice heard.
The politics of consensus does not work in Malta – it never has, it never will. Remember that Malta predominantly supports labour with only sufficient Nationalists and floating voters to change the government once the proverbial shit hits the fan. The MLP, and let us face it, this is not a new PL but the old wolf well dressed in sheep’s clothing, will stamp its foot and miltate on the slightest issue when in opposition. The PN on the other hand, soft after four legislatures, devoid of proper leadership, weakened by infighting and betrayal, has lost its bark and its bite, and with it, the electorate.
Castille is burning, and so it should be, but not through the cause of faulty electrical wiring. Neither should it be burning because our very own Nero is too occupied with his lyres (pun intended). Castille should indeed be burning (if only figuratively) in its own shame, when the Maltese people are assembled outside its walls, united, in a non political event aimed at opposing the sale of our citizenship and eventually, our European membership and ideals. Castille should be rocked to its very foundations by the cries of the people opposed to the treacherous and unacceptable behaviour that our government, our own elected prime minister, is engaging in on our behalf.
Yet there is nobody standing in front of Castille. The picket line has been replaced by tweets and sound bites that are ineffective and proving to be nothing more than whispers and whines.
One mass meeting is all it takes, with a thousand volunteers to gather at least 35 signatures each and as God is my witness, we will have enough signatures to force a referendum on the government and its scheme in one afternoon. Then do it again, and again, whenever the need arises and let us make sure that Joseph Muscat and his MLP keep their grubby hands off our EU membership.
There is too much at stake to stay silent and try to reach a consensus. The time for words has long since gone. Only actions can see our rights safeguarded.
Is it possible that this is only one man’s opinion? Would I be the only one standing in front of Castille?
I will be there.Let me know day and time
You will definitely not be alone. I, for one, will be there too. I have been asking myself when a protest, a march, a meeting or some other type of activity will be held. We can’t sit on our backsides while someone steals what we have worked for in the past years.
No, YOU ARE NOT WALKING ALONE. Rest assured and take it from me, and do not let Toni l-Aspro put your mind at rest on this.
While I understand the sentiment, referenda should not be held on matters that are intrinsically wrong. Selling the citizenship of a country is WRONG and remains wrong even if all of the country votes in favour of it. Would murder become acceptable if a majority voted in favour of it?
I will definitely be there. Malta needs more people like you, Osservatore.
If we leave the European Union within the next few years, my life is ruined. I will not be able to live abroad and will doomed to the third-world standard of living that will follow such a decision and such a government.
I cannot understand WHY the Labour government wants us to leave the EU. It would seem to me that China, Labour’s ally, would want us to remain in the EU.
I hope, for everyone’s sake, that you are wrong.
[Daphne – An EU member state cannot integrate with other states that are not in the EU. The Labour Party has begun to talk about Malta’s European identity and not Malta’s status as a member of the European Union. More worrying still, and a harbinger of what is to come, at the Labour Party’s press conference yesterday Toni Abela actually made a point of emphasizing that Malta had a European identity before it joined the European Union. In actual fact, it did not. The Malta in which I grew up was not European at all. A European identity is not something we give ourselves but a state of fact.]
I understand your reasoning and agree that you are probably right. What I can’t understand is why the Labour party would do something which doesn’t seem to give any benefit to the party as a whole or to its individual members. Leaving the EU would certainly not be popular with the electorate.
Hopefully the Nationalist Party will come to power next general election and reverse the damages.
History shows that the electorate is a fickle bunch.
Throw together a decent PR campaign and the electorate will dance to any tune.
Stephen, as a 19 year old student myself, I can completely relate to your well-founded concerns.
I’ve always sensed an ulterior motive behind the sale of passports. With Muscat openly and brazenly defying the EP’s resolution it’s almost as though he wants them to boot us out in as little time as possible.
As it stands, the EU is the only bulwark protecting Malta from all sorts of human rights abuses sanctioned by previous Labour governments.
On the other hand, if he really does want to sell passports to make a quick buck, why would he want us out of the EU? A Maltese passport on its own is worth zilch to a foreign buyer. Potential buyers are only in it for EU citizenship.
Something doesn’t quite add up here.
Sadly it does add up, Connor.
1. Joseph made a promise to deliver EU passports by a certain date.
2. Joseph did not expect a strong reaction by the Opposition, the general public and the EU, EP.
3. Joseph realized that he could not deliver as promised and that his head will roll.
4. Joseph had to find an excuse and fast – blamed the Opposition.
5. If he rolls on with the IIP and Malta is thrown out of Schengen the value of the Maltese EU passport diminishes.
6. Joseph will declare that membership with EU is no longer advantageous for Malta and requests a withdrawal.
7. He will have no choice but to submit to a referendum.
8. If he wins it will be the perfect excuse not to deliver the promise he made some two years ago. Heqq, ippruvajt!
9. He will then seek to integrate with a country ‘not in the EU’.
He will not succeed, but damage to Malta’s credibility will last a lifetime or more.
My thoughts exactly. Things are going from bad to worse at an exponential rate and in this situation, I think it’s worth looking at the psychology of Joseph Muscat.
We know that he is amoral, as evidenced by his use of a mentally ill man as part of his vicious slander campaign on mostly honest individuals, and we know that he is a hypocrite, as evidenced by the whole Malta Taghna Lkoll thing as well as the fact that he calls for high standards in MPs but has people from the ‘Golden Ages’ in his cabinet.
It is also a fact that he is a liar – he blatantly lied about having never met Shiv Nair when there are eyewitness accounts of him sitting in a box at the Manoel Theatre with him and also at dinner with him in a restaurant, as far back as around three years ago.
The above are just a few examples from many of which I’ve lost count, but I’m sure that as a reader of this blog you know what I’m talking about.
Call me crazy, but I would take it a step further and suggest that Muscat has an element of sadism in him. Something tells me that power to him is not just a means of satisfying his ego and greed but a source of psychological pleasure.
It seems to me that he wants people to fear him and I have for the first time in my life experienced what it’s like to actually be afraid of my government.
As an accounts student, I cannot offer any detailed analysis of Joseph Muscat, but it would be interesting to hear what students of psychology have to say. The big question is, what motivates him and what will he do next? I think it’s safe to say that even those who didn’t vote Labour deeply underestimated him.
The re-making of a dictatorship. This will be on your conscience, dear Switchers.
I can already hear “but England is also thinking of leaving the EU! Why shouldn’t we?”
SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY OFFER –
Buy a Malta passport now and become a citizen of the People’s Republic of China.
Guaranteed restrictions on travel in Europe, within China, and near impossible access to the USA.
A snip at Euro 650,000 + incidentals.
As purchased by Saudi Royal, Former F1 champion, and pop-singer.
Only 1997 left. BUY NOW.
It’s time to take a stand.
What’s happening is not a surprise for all of us who were not hooked by Muscat, but the speed with which it is happening and the full extent of it, is really surprising.
It shows that all this was planned. This is the much-vaunted roadmap, a road to a sort of hell of war with the EU and integration with undisclosed countries which are not in the EU.
How does one obtain citizenship of another EU member state? Other than through marriage?
[Daphne – You can’t even do it through marriage unless you have been married for many years. With some states, you are eligible for citizenship if one of your parents was a citizen. There are many people like that in Malta, with one parent who is/was British, Irish, German, Italian, French or Spanish. Lots of Maltese of my generation have British citizenship because they were born there. Their children are then able to obtain British citizenship through them. Some Maltese have been in Britain for so many years that they have become eligible for naturalization, and some are naturalized already.]
Few countries nowadays give citizenship through birth unless the parents possess the citizenship of the country in question.
If you’re a man, and not yet 40, there’s always the Foreign Legion.
Nice. We are back to the “Integration” era. Was that something of the 1950s?
The Prime Minister and his party have called the Maltese MEPs of the PN “tradituri” – traitors.
Let me tell the Prime Minister who is a traitor. A traitor is he who thinks he can buy the collective silence and consent – and therefore the dignity, freedoms, and achievements – of the population of Malta (400,000 persons circa) for a sum of money which in this case happens to amount to Eur 1 billion, or Eur 2,500 per person, in order to sell that population to the communist government of China and some other oligarchs from outside the EU.
Dr. Muscat, you will not buy me off for any sum of money. Now get off that comfortable chair at the Auberge de Castille, roll up your sleeves, and get down to work on some real productive investment in the economy in order to deliver the economic growth that you promised, jobs and wealth.
The motion before the PL conference is for integration with countries outside the EU.
Which are these countries?
Why are we `integrating` with them?
Is the passports for sale scheme a stepping-stone towards this integration?
Is the manufactured conflict with the EU parliament and the European Commission part of this strategy to integrate with unspecified countries outside the EU?
This is very worrying. This is possibly an attempt to steer our country, by surprise and trickery, to a place we do not wish to be and to which this government has absolutely no mandate to take us.
The PL is the party that was and still is rabidly anti-European. Any statement otherwise has no factual basis, and should be interpreted as an act of deceit or stupidity.
The PL campaigned viciously against Malta’s accession to the EU. The leader of that campaign is now our prime minister.
The government has managed to get 89% of the EU parliament to vote against Malta’s decision to sell EU citizenship, but the prime minister says he will carry on regardless towards conflict with the whole of the EU and Schengen Treaty allies.
You can see where this is leading.
The government has engineered a conflict with our Schengen Treaty allies – the states with which we truly are integrated and whose trust we are now abusing so as to integrate with mysterious others outside the EU.
This EU-Malta conflict is a diabolical attempt by an unscupulous governing regime to break an allegiance and integration with over two dozen European countries for which the people of Malta voted directly in a referendum and then mandated a government in the following election to proceeed.
Our present government has no mandate to go down this path. No mandate at all. This is a 10-month-old government which is treating its electoral mandate as a free licence to do whatever it wishes, regardless of its electoral programme.
They have tricked the people of Malta into giving them what they want: unadulterated power unrestrained by an electoral programme.
“Our present government has no mandate to go down this path. No mandate at all. This is a 10-month-old government which is treating its electoral mandate as a free licence to do whatever it wishes, regardless of its electoral programme. ”
So true.
I’ve already started looking into getting UK citizenship.
Daphne, spot on again.
I’ve been telling this to family and friends right after they tried to pushback irregular immigrants.
People of a certain age don’t change and Labour is riddled with older people from the Mintoff era, led by a Mintoff enthusiast. Their mindset remains the same though they used a false front and image to convince people to elect them.
Now that they are in power, the false front and image are gone because they are no longer necessary. The same people who voted them in can’t vote them out for another four years and they have five years to play with in all.
In Mintoff’s time we took money from Libya and had no freedom and no peace of mind. Now, 26 years later we’ll be getting money from China and we already have no peace of mind while worrying about our freedom.
Yes, people voted for change, but now the same people have started to understand that they all have to pay very dearly for this change at their own expense and ours, as we are left at the mercy of these mercenary, sadly predictable bullies.
So yes, all those who can flee this country should do so right away. Safe with Labour? It is only a bad joke.
I didn’t vote for the PL because it was clear to me that they were not up to the job.
When the PL won with such a big majority, I thought that maybe others knew something I didn’t. Maybe the PL wasn’t, couldn’t, be as inept as I imagined. Who knows, maybe I was in for a pleasant surprise after all.
Now, just ten months down the line, things are worse than anyone would have dared to imagine.
If what you have written above comes to pass, it will be like living in a nightmare from which we can’t wake up.
In four years’ time the damage will be mostly irreparable.
Joseph Muscat keeps referring to abortion when talking about conflicts with the EU. It is clear where he intends to draw battle lines (at least in Malta). Being the blind lot we, as an electorate, have been so far, I fear the worst.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-01-19/news/sacked-for-criminal-association-cleared-on-a-technicality-now-a-vat-director-3722117121/
Is this meritocracy according to Joseph Muscat ?
Too bad I don’t have either residency or parentage requirements to get a different EU member state citizenship. Seems I’m stuck.
I am totally against any sort of scheme which sells citizenship. I have just read the headlines of The Sunday Times and feel so disgusted.
It just reminds me of those men who feel so good at having wooed a Russian girl or those Maltese girls who think they’re a cut above the rest because they have been picked by an Italian guy. Veru xbajt.
Yes, it is a frightening time, and we should worry. There is a large number of people who let others do the thinking for them.
Their thinking skills, if they were ever encouraged to develop any, are dormant and they say what they are told to say. They parrot thoughts and phrases.
The “thinking skills” were used to develop the strategy of the game.
The scam was getting the people to feel they were in on a good thing. Getting “the game” down to a level playing field for inclusion of all the dimwits ready to be scammed by flattery and deception.
“The game” was well understood by those in as players, perhaps not the finer twists to the depravity, just in so far as the money and earnings allure was concerned.
We are now all forcibly included and locked into this game.
It’s up to us to get out and break it.
If it sounds twisted, it’s because it is.
Talk about virtual invasion and Malta being the head of the gaming industry.
The joke, once again, is on us Maltese. And Europe and The States have been drawn into it.
As to your last suggestion the answer is:
I am doing just that.
One pertinent question which no one seems to have asked:
“If other EU countries were also selling citizenship, why would anyone be interested in buying Maltese citizenship?”
If selling passports really were such a brilliant brainwave, all the other EU member states would be doing it. But they aren’t.
You are so right, Daphne – my sentiments exactly. What is it with Labour governments and their desire to destroy our country and reputation?
[Daphne – And to shatter our peace of mind and leave us constantly on edge…]
Why would they want to exit? No one is going to be interested in citizenship that is only valid for Malta.
They will already have their billion by then.
They will, but if Maltese citizenship won’t take you to the EU, there will be problems.
I assume this is the excitement people wanted. Normal life can be dull.
There is always something to worry about when Labour is in government.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-01-19/news/sacked-for-criminal-association-cleared-on-a-technicality-now-a-vat-director-3722117121/
Yes, when I was young, I remember the older generations stating each December “Ha naraw x’ha jaqla Mintoff dan il-Milied.”
If we do exit the EU, what happens to the Maltese that are currently living and working in another EU country?
[Daphne – If they don’t manage to acquire residence status, they will have to return to Malta and stay here.]
Ditto for people like me (British).
I guess the same will apply.
I have been reading the many comments under The Sunday Times story about the people who are buying Maltese passports, the highly talented people, suitcases at the ready, coming to grace our sodden rock.
I know that it is a waste of time and space to try and convince anyone on those comments-boards, so I’ve come here to let off steam instead.
Bear with me because I cannot take this much longer.
How convenient for the government to leak this ‘scoop’ to The Sunday Times just when we are facing the wrath of the EU on our citizenship scheme.
Where are our investigative journalists asking some hard questions and demanding real facts for answers. Is this what we have ended up with, lackeys for a political party?
I would love to know if this American press magnate will be buying up our motley collection of Maltese newspapers, if the South American footballer will be playing for Malta, if the pop-singer will win us the ever elusive Eurovision, or if the Chinese billionaire who has flown in to speak to Henley & Partners will be moving his billions into Maltese banks.
Come off it.
How cunning of Henley & Partners to name, with the say-so of the government, people who appeal to the typical low-brow Maltese sense of what is ‘talented’ and ‘intelligent’, with a press magnate thrown in as a sop for the intelligentsia.
The real fact is that these people, and the hundreds not mentioned, only want a ‘get out of jail’ card – not entirely free, just a mere tip for them from their very deep pockets to access the EU. And in the case of the US press magnate, he wants – like many other Americans – a new passport so that he can give up his US citizenship and get rid of the US tax authorities which hound US citizens wherever they are in the world.
How can anyone even remotely think that these people want to even set foot in Malta? I wonder if they actually knew Malta existed prior to this scheme. And here we have a lovely cross-section of the Maltese electorate thinking that they will actually come here and live here, and that they want a Maltese passport because they are just dying to be Maltese.
The only thing you cannot fault Labour on is their savvy knowledge of how the (dys)functional brain of most Maltese works.
Now I feel slightly better.
Did The Sunday Times investigate about the calibre and talent of those 60 Chinese families which Mr. Major of Henley & Something had mentioned with PBS on 8 November 2013?
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/11/its-bad-form-to-say-i-told-you-so-but-at-this-stage-i-dont-really-care/
Shouldn’t The Sunday Times also interview the finance minister? Clearly something was amiss with his budgetary projections.
Funny how the “€30m for services against a fee” became “a generationally changing €1.5bn”. Then again Scicluna is probably under the 21st century PL version of house arrest.
The Minister of Finance has vanished. Where is he?
And where is the minister of foreign affairs and haven’t seen the minister of European affairs either. I nearly forgot that the ex-MEP is deputy Prime Minister.
The only thing you cannot fault Labour on is their savvy knowledge of how the (dys)functional brain of most Maltese works.
I don’t agree that they don’t understand how the gits’ brains work, they simply ARE GITS THEMSELVES. It takes no genius to be yourself.
Yep, that is why I said you cannot fault them on that matter.
Of course they know that, enforce land reform, carry out an extensive social housing program to dump extended families in one place and you have them bred, reared and brainwashed into seeing this as the only thing ever possible.
The politics to be adopted by the PN have to be radical. Arriva was just a symptom.
I whiled away a dreary Sunday morning nursing a bad bout of flu and flooding the timesofmalta comment-board.
A few of the milder ones made it to the board, but the more pertinent ones like the one I posted here never made it – even though I wrote them twice.
And you should read some of the answers I got to the other ones – all in all a very pleasant throwback to the 80s of my youth. Integration kien jonqos.
Shame on The Sunday Times for letting itself be used in this cheap and tacky manner. That headline is nothing but pure propaganda, and they haven’t investigated anything but run with a story spoonfed to them so obviously by the government itself.
So now The Sunday Times is a government mouthpiece.
Many idiots are now imagining themselves hobnobbing with Rubens Barrichello, Shakira and, just like in a Disney movie, a real prince.
Get real, everybody. These people are not planning to live here and they will add absolutely no value to Malta. They will take our passport and run, not even opening a bank account here.
There’s a precedent to this. When Gérard Depardieu obtained Russian citizenship to get away from the French taxman, few were those applauding him. Granted, nobody likes Hollande’s insane taxes but the French expected Depardieu to stick with them, suffer with them and build a better France, and not to bugger off to Russia just because the going got tough. It’s not like he couldn’t afford to pay the taxman anyway.
Depardieu was even derided by politicians for doing what he did.
By being a haven for undeserving individuals (people escaping war and extreme poverty are a different matter), we are potentially opening up a diplomatic can of worms with many countries.
Applicant No. 1 isn’t in the publishing industry though.
Labour has always had a totalitarian mentality, despite doing a very good job of hiding it from most people for the past ten years or so, and they clearly still do.
For them the population is something the State needs to be defended from and other totalitarian states are seen as allies who can help defend the State from the population.
Malta, State, country, government and Labour Party are of course synonyms in their minds.
Integration should be left dead and buried with Dom Mintoff. It’s bad enough that we’re reliving shades of the 80s, or are we now on a trip to the 50s?
Oh, so if the person buying the passport is a Formula One champion, it makes it all right then.
What warped reasoning.
If I sleep with someone for cash, it still makes me a prostitute even if that person is the most admired person in the world.
The point is that Joseph Muscat is whoring our country and the rest of Europe.
Now we just know to whom – or at least some of them. It doesn’t change the fact that it is still whoring. It also doesn’t change the fact that there could be others that are not quite as high profile (or indeed the exact opposite).
Remember Hugh Grant and the prostitute in LA, Divine Brown. Hugh Grant is extremely likeable and apparently Divine Brown became a millionairess, but it doesn’t change the fact that the act that brought their names together was one of prostitution.
That proves that if you suck the right c*ck you’ll go places…
This is exactly the point. Labour focuses on the fact that the prostitute became a millionaire. The fact that she did so through prostitution does not bother their amoral minds in the slightest.
The Prime Minister’s article in The Sunday Times, “Citizenship scheme will lead to generational transformation of the country”, is not locked to non-subscribers. It is not premium content as all its opinion pieces are, which means that The Sunday Times wants people to read it for free, and as many people as possible. Why?
Everything and everyone has a price tag, according to Joseph Muscat.
[Daphne – I once knew somebody whose mantra that was. Mario Vella, Muscat’s adviser, will know exactly who I mean.]
I wouldn’t get another country’s citizenship even if I could. I would rather stand here and speak out, against everyone if necessary, than be a coward and run away.
I choose to speak, make my voice heard, explain our position to others even if it seems almost impossible.
Stand up and be counted, as our “BELOVED” Dr. Muscat said. “Kunu protagonisti”.
If WE give up, everything is lost.
If Dr. Muscat wants to take us back to Mintoffian times, than let him do so, but he will have to face us first.
I used to write here on this website using a pseudonym. But now it’s time to wake up, as Kevin said.
There is still time to stand up and be counted. It is never too late.
Defend Malta from the Labour Party which wants to and actually is derailing our progress as a EU state.
The first step is become a member of the Nationalist Party or Alternattiva Demokratika. Both parties I think should ‘unite’ publicly and form a common front against this threat to Malta’s survival as an EU member state.
Speak out in public and don’t be bullied into silence or submission. When you are in a social context, and the conversation is being taken over by those who are defending Muscat because they voted for him, speak out. Say your bit. Do not keep quiet and let them take over and dominate.
Support those newspapers which report properly on what is happening. Freedom of speech is precious. We lost it once and we don’t want to lose it again through bullying and self-censorship through fear.
We are Europeans, the citizens of an EU member state, and that’s the way most of us want to remain. Many of those who voted against EU membership would not wish, now, to trade the way of life they have now, with all these freedoms, for the narrow and restricted way of life we had before, prisoners of the passport of a tiny island state.
It’s important: speak out or lose what you have.
Well said. It’s time to fight back.
I agree, but why have you not used your own name here?
You are right. There was a time when I did, however, and that was when I was much younger, fighting Mintoff tooth and nail in the seventies and eighties, even at the cost of having part of my family destroyed.
That battle was won but the trauma and the grudge remain as you can hardly reverse political and material injustices.
I am in my mid-sixties now encouraging the Maltese to fight these lurid socialists for their rights. I must admit that my courage is not the same.
Mandy, some of us have jobs or status where, whilst not speaking in the name of our employer, could nonetheless be seen as unprofessional. One needs to fight in one’s name when the time is right.
When I have had to fight nepotism or government abuse I have used my own name and used the right channels to ensure that it does not happen to others. To imply that those using an alias is somehow cowardly is to misunderstand the reasons why people do this.
Some of us don’t have jobs at all, and are looking for one. Employers and institutions look askance at anyone who expresses a political opinion, especially someone who organises a protest. And it isn’t because they are Laburisti, but because no one loves a troublemaker.
What should one do, laugh or cry? It’s back to pre-election speeches. He shouldn’t have gone to Fgura but to the newly built balcony at Hamrun.
“Dr Muscat said that history had once again called on the Labour Party to transform the country into one the people deserved.” (Times of Malta)
Nationalist governments invariably took a clear, transparent and consistent direction in constant consultation with the public.
Even EU membership, for which the electorate had given a mandate in 1998, was put to the referendum vote in 2003 and to yet another general election vote a month later, to be sure that this was really what the public wanted.
In contrast, nobody knows the goals of this government, and I would wager that includes most members of the cabinet, who are beginning to look increasingly worried, lost and confused. This governance by trickery and deceit is no way to run a country, especially a democratic one, and a member of the European Union to boot.
At the start of the administration they may have been excused because they were still learning the ropes, but now, almost a year down the line, things are going downhill ever faster.
A couple of months ago I would have said that “if we continued along this path” things would inevitably get ugly. Today I believe that the critical point has already been reached and there is no going back.
Politically, Malta is already a pariah in the EU and the EU is the life-blood of this small island state.
Already we are seeing a decline in economic activity. This decline cannot but worsen quickly in the coming months, especially since the government insists on sending conflicting signals as to strategy and direction.
Business cannot flourish in a climate of uncertainty and instability. We were told that Gonzi’s last year caused uncertainty because of the fifth-column backbenchers putting spanners is the works.
But if that was uncertainty, we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Even if the government saw sense and stopped the madness, the damage has been done and it will take years to reverse the harm and rebuild the trust and and reputation that this government has flushed down the toilet.
You read my mind. I was too afraid to write it as it would make it that much more real.
To me this kind of government action smacks of two things.
1. That they are deliberately trying to provoke ‘Europe’ to kick us out of the European Union, so as not to take the blame for opting out themselves;
2. If that fails, they’ll milk the proverbial cow with this scheme, which is the only source of revenue that they have managed to come up with. Win-win situation in their warped minds.
The only fly in the ointment is: what would this government do if we do end up leaving the EU? The main pillar that the sale of passports rests on is the fact that we are a member state. Maltese passports have no intrinsic value in themselves.
We’ve created a monster.
Well, if Muscat gets Malta out of the EU, what will he do with his genial citizenship scheme, shove it up a dark place?
I still cannot understand what is Joseph Muscat’s plan with the Eur “one thousand millions.”
Is he going to increase the size of government by about 33%?
Is he going to create another centralised – read communist – economy, perhaps with the help of Dr. Mario Vella?
To all those who are panicking he’ll drag us out, It’s not in his interest to take us out of the EU, otherwise his scheme is useless.
It’s Mintoff’s Ewropa ta’ Kajjin revisited, only this time, instead of open brinkmanship, our dear salesman will look for ways and means to latch onto outside interests to undermine the European bloc.
If anything, it will be his PL to be removed from the PES, and Mintoff’s mantra is soon translated into the present day ‘Europe of regions and autonomies’.
He’s in line with their views, xenophobia, anti-Euro, anti-European Central Bank, financial instability and most siginficantly a double standard when it comes to trade, employment, growth and wealth generation.
Ask any Leghista, UKIP or Freedom thingy member, they’ll come back with all the rhetoric you can get only to find they’re happily trading in sovereign default swaps of the countries they claim to support against the evil EU monster.
It all boils down to the abuse of the word ‘democracy’ and how it’s used to stir up hatred of an unknown.
Muscat, the quintessential example, has no qualms in playing al ribasso. His ideal is to provide cheap labour to the Chinese, reducing standards, instead of piling the pressure to break down China’s oppression of workers and human rights violations. Muscat the biznissman gets priority over Muscat the statesman.
This integration could be related to China’s military strategy in the Med, their fleet is based on light fast ships which require ports close by for replenishment.
Lino Spiteri’s column in The Sunday Times today reminds me of the years when, according to him, we had a very democratic government of which he formed part.
Those who did not agree with that government were called ‘ghedewwa tal-poplu’, ‘xewwiexa’, ‘tradituri’, ‘ghedewwa tal-klassi tal-haddiema’ and worse.
The only thing anyone needs to know about Lino Spiteri is that he supported Mintoff through his worst excesses. Anything he says should be seen in that context.
I haven’t heard the PN going on about the main argument against selling passports, which is that they have no mandate because it wasn’t in the manifesto.
Is this because most people take it as read that the manifesto is mainly lies and bullshit, for both PL and PN?
How is it that people are now ready to swear (you know the Maltese equivalent “nahlef fuq ———: fill in blanks ) that they did not vote Labour last March?
Have all the “switchers” gone to earth? Where did the Labour majority come from and, more important, where is it going?
The majority came from first-time voters who have never felt hardship or loss of liberty. LGBT voters who had the wool pulled over their eyes also switched.
Why they did this exactly, seeing as not only were they not oppressed under the PN but actually had their liberties guaranteed by Malta’s membership of the EU, is a bit of a mystery.
Then there were the many people who were disillusioned with the PN for varying reasons, whether due to electoral fatigue (25 years in power is long by any measure), limited but unacceptable nepotism — which incidentally has now gone through the roof with the PL and made the PN sins look minor — some did not get their share of the pie which in a clientilist country can be deadly for any party, and finally, all those people such as Engerer, Franco Debono and JPO who were after the money and knew the PN was too principled to give it to them.
When you take all these together it is a surprise they only won a 9-seat majority really.
If the government plans to remove us from the EU, then surely the Prime Minister is aware not many people would be interested in purchasing a Maltese citizenship, not if that citizenship is suddenly limited in its opportunities within a short period of time.
Why would they spend two (euro) cents if access to other European member states is removed?
Subsequently, how will the government then raise the one billion euro it needs to fund its projects?
And even if this whole citizenship matter is canned along with Malta’s EU membership, how will Malta’s allegiance with non-EU states help us get that money?
Perhaps we can become an offshore financial centre, in defiance of the OECD standards, but that again will take years to build and show any significant results.
Will we become the Mediterranean satellite of China, another Hong Kong, but essentially belonging to China? That’s pretty far-fetched.
I would, however, be interested to know how Franco Debono is tackling the clause relating to Malta’s non-alignment in his redraft of the Constitution.
http://www.maltarightnow.com/?module=news&at=L%2Destremisti+huma+l%2D%26%23295%3Bbieb+ta%E2%80%99+Muscat+fl%2DEwropa&t=a&aid=99853648&cid=19
Anti-semites, racists, the extreme right, nostalgics of the USSR and Nigels who’d love to rule Britannia.
Take a closer look, most of them facing fraud, embezzelment charges and generally doing financial alchemy with the funds they get from the EU as ‘political movements’ in that august parliament.
Fancy that, battling the EU and being accused back home of doing everything to remain members to get that money.
If it rings a bell, it’s because we got one of those. The money siphoned off to Ghaddafi’s financial consultant, who was in turn, Mintoff’s party advisor.
Tutto cambia, niente cambia.
Do you think Dr Muscat will start feeding his ‘so called nation’s traitors and enemies’ to hungry hounds as Kim Jong-Il of North Korea does?
Possibly if he had the chance. With some people the only thing that stops them is the prohibition of an act rather than the fact that it is intrinsically wrong.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing.”
-1984-
Now that is frighteningly true…..
Or as Mussolini used to call them, democrazie plutocratiche, so does Muscat refuse anything outside his movement.
Why, it had the token LGBT, the ex-Nationalists, muslims, hunters and arty farties, jahasra, isn’t that self-contained democracy?
Daphne, your earlier piece this week on the uneasiness that we have to live with the PL government gave me the goosebumps.
When the PN were in government, although I did not agree with all the decisions taken, life could go on. You never expected any major disruptions and you could go to bed and wake up the next morning without worrying what news you’ll be hearing the next day.
My God, how things have changed in just 10 months. I’ve got this knot in the bottom of my stomach which can never go away.
I’m always encouraging my kids to study and when they are old enough to go and study abroad in another EU state to experience life outside the shores of our little rock.
Don’t tell me that they won’t be able to do that as EU citizens.
We started our family after Malta became an EU member as I always aspired to be able to give my kids an EU citizenship, not just Maltese. And now we risk losing it all.
http://www.partitlaburista.org/malta-maltija-ewropea-globali/?cat=94
Dhalt biex naqra x’tghid il-mozzjoni imfassla mill-amministrazzjoni u li se jivvutaw fuqha id-delegati tal-partit , u ma sibt xejn.
Toni Abela tkellem fuq xi haga li jaf biha hu, u xi erba tar-raba sular. Tawhom kopja tal-mozzjoni lil-gurnalisti? Jew ahjar, talbu kopja tal-mozzjoni is-suppost gurnalisti?
La Toni tkellem fuq il-mozzjoni, mela suppost lesta.
Dawn x’affarijiet huma? Qed nitkellmu fuq mozzjoni meta ma nafu xejn x’tghid il-mozzjoni.
Din bhal-kuntratt li ghamel il-gvern ma’ Henley and Partners, hadd ma jaf x’hemm miktub fih , u kullhadd jitkellem fuqu.
Il-famuza “roadmap” kullhadd jitkellem fuqha u hadd ma jaf li raha jew qraha.
Jitnejku bina f’wiccna u ahna nkomplu maghhom!