[ANALYSIS] Is Bernard Grech opening the floodgates for Norman Lowell?

Bernard Grech seems to have realised his party’s abstract critique of an economic model based on population growth is not resonating with disenchanted voters. 

Different polls show these voters remain firmly entrenched in the “non-voters” camp. But with surveys showing immigration to be one of the top concerns of disenchanted Labour voters, Grech has tried to spice up his rhetoric with xenophobic tropes and statistical exaggerations. 

He follows up his statements with disclaimers to avoid the far-right tag, something that is so off-putting for some of his own potential voters. 

During his speech in parliament last Wednesday when the budget estimates for the Office of the Prime Minister were being discussed, Grech started off by recounting what people are telling him. It was an attempt to give his message a populist touch. 

To do this he referred to a Learning Support Educator who told him that “eight of her eleven students are foreigners”. He also referred to people lamenting “that they do not feel comfortable using buses despite the fact that these are free because these are full of foreigners”. 

But aware that this ‘discomfort’ may also reflect racial prejudice, he immediately presented his first disclaimer “that it would be great mistake to make a distinction because someone is a foreigner.” 

The problem for Grech is two-fold. His pandering to prejudice is off-putting to younger voters who have grown up in the new multicultural Malta with surveys showing less concern on migration among the 16- to 35-year-old cohort. And his contradictory statements and disclaimers are unlikely to quench the anger of those who simply want to purge Malta of foreigners, and who will thus still perceive him as a snowflake. 

Muddying the waters 

After his first disclaimer Grech could not resist pandering to another racial prejudice, that which distinguishes foreigners from the European Union and those ‘imported’ from outside the bloc. 

In so doing, the same Grech who voices the LSE’s problem with handling classrooms where foreigners constitute a majority, ignores official statistics showing that Italians account for 1,123 out of 8,000  foreign students attending Maltese schools. Italians, in other words EU citizens, emerge as the most representative ‘foreign’ nationality in our schools.  

And to further muddy the waters he proceeded to cast doubt on NSO statistics by hinting that thousands of foreigners are staying without any legal permit. He even claimed that Labour has “nearly doubled the population”, which would mean that Malta now harbours a population of 850,000 instead of the official 535,000. 

He also claimed that the country has “lost control on who is entering and leaving” and is endangering “security” and “people’s peace of mind.”  In doing so Grech is not only depicting foreigners as a security threat, but risks legitimising even wilder claims made by the far right on the Maltese becoming a minority in their own country, fully knowing that mistrust in official immigration statistics was a major factor contributing to Brexit, the election of Donald Trump in the USA and the rise of the far right in other EU member states.   

Grech’s tightrope walk  

Then again, Grech walked a tightrope between rightful condemnation of “modern day slavery” and his belief in the “dignity of every person”, and a divisive ‘us vs them’ mentality.  In a direct appeal to working class discontentment he presented the argument that the availability of cheaper foreign labour is resulting in a “race to the bottom” which pushes wages downwards. 

While Grech is right in denouncing cheap labour prevalent in some sectors of the economy, he fails to condemn those businessmen who resort to such practices, shifting the blame on foreign labour. He also ignores economic realities like skills shortages in several economic sectors including crucial public services like health. He also overlooks the fact that Maltese workers shun manual jobs, particularly those requiring longer hours but which still must be performed. Finally, Grech also spoke from personal experience, referring to his own mothers’ stay in hospital during her final days. He expressed gratitude and praised the Maltese and foreign health workers for their excellence, but also referred to his mother’s difficulty in communicating with foreign workers who were assisting her. 

And while Grech touched on a real problem, the question for him is: Would Maltese patients fare any better if Malta stopped ‘importing’ foreigners and end up having even less assistance in their moment of greatest need? 

Historical ironies: How parties toy with the far right in opposition  

In his reply to Grech’s speech the Prime Minister was quick to denounce  the use of far-right language in an attempt to scare Maltese people about foreigners. Abela even singled out an editorial on In-Nazzjon which created a distinction between foreigners and “indigenous” Maltese. 

In this sense Grech gave Abela the opportunity to stand on the moral high ground and posture for the middle ground.  Ironically before 2013 it was Lawrence Gonzi as prime minister who used to lambast the Labour Opposition led by Joseph Muscat for toying with far-right discourse with regards to asylum seekers arriving in Malta by boat. 

Even former PN leader Adrian Delia who said the same things Grech is saying now was often singled out by the then dissident wing of the party for pandering to the far right.  Irrespective of ideology, opposition parties in Malta tend to toy with migration anxieties to lure disenchanted voters from the other side. While Labour pounced on boat arrivals in the Gonzi era, it is now the PN’s turn to capitalise on discontentment with the influx of economic migrants. 

Robert Abela also reminded his own xenophobic audience that his rival had been reluctant to accept his inane challenge to agree with him that Malta was “full up” with regards to asylum seekers in 2020. 

But in a scenario where disenchantment with the political class is growing, the stakes for both parties may be higher this time around. 

It is unlikely for an establishment figurehead like Grech to capture the anti-immigrant vote and yet he risks mainstreaming far right arguments, giving them greater legitimacy. Turning migration into the main issue of MEP elections could well be counterproductive for the PN.  

Let’s not forget that Delia’s attempt to milk the same issue, with mock-ups of Labour billboards apologising for ‘stuffing Malta with foreigners’ was unsuccessful.  In fact, it was the far right which ultimately benefitted from this sentiment scoring its best result in a national election, just weeks after the murder of Lassana Cisse. Moreover, in an election where protest votes have no consequence on who governs the country, angry, disenchanted and xenophobic voters may well prefer the unadulterated and toxic far right brand offered by someone like Norman Lowell to Grech’s terse balancing act to capitalise on this issue without crossing the line. 

Norman Lowell could very well end up benefitting from the PN’s anti-foreigner rhetoric in next year’s European Parliament election as he tries to emulate far-right leader Geert Wilders’s success in the Netherlands

The problem for Grech is that the temptation to cross the line will grow, the more he tries to milk it.  Like other centre-right parties on the continent, Grech is taking a leap in the dark. 

Geert Wilders’ success in Dutch elections on the same day of Grech’s inflammatory speech is a reminder that attempts by mainstream parties to capitalise on the migration issue often backfire. Voters disenchanted by the balancing acts of the political class ultimately opt for the original doc brand offered by self-avowed ‘racialists’ like Norman Lowell. 

But while Abela like Gonzi before him is right in condemning the seepage of far-right discourse into the political mainstream, it is the inequalities ingrained in the dominant economic model which contain the seeds of discontentment that make the ground fertile for the far right. 

Abela insists that he is now correcting this model by clamping down on abusive practices, however, it remains to be seen whether he has the resolve to push through measures which could alienate those who have gorged themselves during the ‘best of times’.