News • 06 July 2003

KMB campaigns for EU withdrawal and threatens Labour split

The former eccentric Prime minister and Labour leader Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici has launched a personal campaign encouraging Labour MPs to consider taking Malta out of the European Union as part of their political platform.

Mifsud Bonnici is also calling on sympathetic MPs to seriously consider setting up a new Labour party. Ironically, his stand is being welcomed by some of the top brass at Mile End who believe that a split could rid Labour once and for all of its loony left image.

The former premier is still a Labour Party delegate and people close to him say he is adamant the party should respect the will of the 48 per cent of the electorate, who voted for it on an anti-EU platform. Mifsud Bonnici argues that Labour MPs were voted in on the premise that they were against membership and if they shift their position they would be betraying the people who voted for them. It is an argument supported by others in the party.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici’s maverick ideas have clashed with those of Alfred Sant, who just two months ago was Malta’s foremost eurosceptic.

The Labour Party found itself in a quandary after the election. The moderates, who have accepted EU membership, have to contend with the militant hardcore adamant on hanging on to the option of withdrawal.

The ageing former Prime Minister best remembered by the initials KMB and laughed at for his bizarre statements on AIDS and the Israeli Mossad, is fuelled by the old man himself: Dom Mintoff. Mintoff, although over 85, still has a hold on KMB and has used him as a mascot for his home bred nationalistic movement the Front Maltin Inqumu.

In the Labour party top echelons, word is out to rout those who align themselves too closely with Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. But the stage is set for a very interesting general conference in November where the party’s EU position is expected to be debated in light of the general election outcome.