Robert Abela makes amends with Jennifer Tabone

Jennifer Tabone, who resigned from the Labour Party’s women branch last week, will not be returning to the party’s structures just yet despite a cordial meeting with the prime minister on Tuesday.

In a Facebook post, Tabone shared a photo of her shaking hands with Prime Minister Robert Abela and thanking him for meeting her and listening to her concerns.

She thanked the prime minister for the meeting and for understanding the reasons for her resignation. However, she fell short of announcing any return to the party’s official structures.

Sources told MaltaToday that, while it was a cordial meeting between the two, she will not be going back to the party at this stage.

Her original concerns remain, and she wants to see how much resolve and commitment there is from the prime minister’s end to address these concerns.

Tabone had told MaltaToday that she resigned because of fundamental disagreements over party strategy and the proposed planning reform.

She said she was particularly opposed to personal attacks, and that she “cannot support the party’s decision to allow certain individuals to dictate the party’s agenda”.

Tabone resigned from Nisa Laburisti soon after Prime Minister Robert Abela was quizzed by MaltaToday about blogposts made by Labour apologist Neville Gafa in which he targeted Tabone.

Tabone was harshly criticised by Neville Gafa for the decision taken by Nisa Laburisti to issue a stern statement disagreeing with Deputy Prime Minister Ian Borg’s decision to nominate Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace prize.

Nisa Laburisti had said it could not understand how anyone could boast about peace when one’s actions leave behind “a great divide fueled by racism, classism, misogyny, xenophobia and homophobia”.