Facebook turns on Labour candidate’s ridiculous comparison of Sea Watch and Maltese migrants

A Labour Party candidate for Europe has compared the hardship of stranded asylum seekers and migrants at sea with Maltese migrants to Australia in the 1950s, suggesting the latter spent longer days at sea and “started working the day they landed”.

Fleur Vella, who will run for Labour in the European elections for the second time since 2014, posted a photo of Maltese migrants aboard a ship on Facebook.

Without making any specific reference to the ongoing saga of the humanitarian rescue NGO Sea Watch, which rescued a boatload of migrants at sea but which are being denied entry by Malta and Italy, Vella said the following in her post: “When the Maltese went to Australia, they spent over a month aboard the vessel and not two weeks! And they would go with a job and an address waiting for them!”

Thousands of Maltese emigrated to Australia between the 1950s and 1970s with permits to settle and work there as the country started building its economy on the back of migrant work after World War II.

But Vella's post, intended to draw a facile comparison with the humanitarian crisis unfolding outside Maltese shores, drew instant condemnation on Facebook.

“Luckily for our forefathers, they were not forced to leave Malta because of war… they were certain of being welcomed. It is shameful that someone in power like you can go down to this level,” said one commenter.

“So you mean they should stay at sea for a whole month, 100 metres away from Malta in this cold, for you to be happy? How ignorant…”

“Are you running for MEP with the Socialists and Democrats with this kind of crap? You are comparing these people with the lives of 49 vulnerable people? Stop tarnishing the name of democratic socialists please. The PES and S&D are not the EFDD or the ENF,” one commenter said referring to the extreme right groupings of MEPs.

Vella, an economists by profession who says she was formerly a Nationalist voter, views irregular immigration as “competition to a stagnant job market” due to “unscrupulous entrepreneurs” who employ workers on the black market, “making the life of the honest businessperson impossible.” Vella has written that providing a legal route for migrants “is essential”.

She has formerly said that she was “only a Nationalist when the party was led by capable persons of high integrity.”

Under past Nationalist administrations, Vella served as MRA chairman before resigning in August 2002.

She has also defended Malta’s sale of passports to the global rich, saying the matter was not within the EU’s remit to decide.

In contrast, other Labour voices supported the rescue ofthe 49 migrants and their being brought to safety in Malta, like Labour candidate and Nisa Laburisti chairperson Nikita Zammit Alamango: “This has gone beyond legalities... I believe in Malta and the rest of Europe have a bigger heart than this, we should have greater faith in humanity and even though Malta cannot take on everyone we should show Europe what socialism really means. Dublin Regulations need to be changed to enforce burden sharing between all EU countries so as to assure that when human lives are at stake we do not waste time seeing who goes where but save them knowing that regulations are in place.”