I know this might sound completely naive within the Maltese scenario, but were people seriously waiting to see how Simon Busuttil would pronounce himself before making up their own minds and deciding on how they feel about the spring hunting issue?

I thought the divorce referendum, when voting crossed party lines, had put paid to all that, but unfortunately, it seems that it didn’t. The spring hunting referendum seems to have triggered some time warp button and has taken us back to the era of the EU referendum, when most PL and PN supporters voted blindly according to their political belief system. Sant says No? So we say no. Eddie told us Yes? So we say Yes.The result was that the country was split evenly down the middle and a Yes vote which barely scrapped through by the skin of its teeth.

Viva l-partit, viva l-mexxej….and we leave our brains at the door when we go into that polling booth.  Far too many people now look back on why they voted yes/no for EU membership and cannot even remember why they took their decision to vote the way they did.  The most they can come up with was “coz the party said so”.

The same was about to happen this time round as people waited with bated breath to see whether it was going to be a No vs Yes vote again with the two main political parties pitted against each other in another boring partisan spectacle. But the whole thing has deflated like a soufflé now that Simon Busuttil has finally emerged from his team huddle and announced that he will be voting in favour of spring hunting.  “…I personally worked for and defended the derogation for limited and sustainable hunting in spring both within my party and in the EU and I have to be consistent,” he said.  I guess he has never heard of anyone changing his mind; I would not have seen anything wrong with him now saying he would vote No because we all revise our thinking as the years go by,  and it takes a strong person to admit they were wrong. Frankly, I think he had a chance to make his first, real stamp as a party leader who was in tune with the liberal, environmentally conscious middle class vote and blew it.

It almost seems surreal that probably for the first time in Maltese political history, we have a situation where the two leaders are actually on the same side, leaving blinkered, diehard supporters scratching their heads and not knowing what to think. “If I vote Yes, does that mean I’m supporting Simon even though I’m Labour?” “But Muscat is voting yes too, so does that mean I’m (omg!) agreeing with him even though I vote PN?”  What kind of travesty is this?!

The hunters are happy, of course, ecstatic probably, as they confirm once again that they have politicians firmly in their macho grip.

So now it’s up to the voters out there who are always priding themselves on being free thinkers to stop waiting around and being told what to think, almost afraid to voice their opinion if it does not fit in with that of the “Supreme Leader”. If enough people are willing to stand up and be counted without giving a fig what the politicians say then the No vote might just have a chance.

The worst obstacle is going to be apathy so it’s up to each and every one of us to get out the vote with friends and relatives who are like-minded and who want to see spring hunting abolished.   Because no one else is going to do it for you. Because politicians are obviously too invested in their own self-preservation to care what the average person (who does not carry a hunting gun) wants.  Because it is clear that the hunting lobby has never been so powerful as it is right this minute when it has just been given the blessing of both leaders of the two parties.

This is not just about hunting in spring, it is about a mindset; a mentality of holding the whole country to ransom simply because they can. This is about not caving in to bullying behaviour, with swaggering, gun-toting hunters feeling perfectly entitled to intimidate those who want to enjoy the countryside.  It is about not accepting the fact that “there is nothing we can do” when hunters shoot at protected species or shoot during the closed season. Some argue that illegal hunting will not stop just because spring hunting is abolished, but that is precisely the point. If so many of them are arrogant and act like they are above the law now, can you imagine how out of control they will be if the Yes vote wins?  If being handed a special derogation to hunt in spring did not satisfy them, what on earth will?

All over the social media I constantly see complaints, anger and furious comments because the law is broken with impunity at every turn by those who feel they can get away with it, while the rest of us who are law-abiding just have to sit there fuming, and take it. Well, if there was ever a chance to use your vote to express your anger at lawlessness, now is the time. It has taken a lot of hard work by those who campaigned for this referendum to come to this point, and now that it is finally going to be held, it will have been all in vain if people simply shrug and say “it has nothing to do with me.”

Yes, it has everything to do with you – because the country, the skies and the birds who fly overhead do not belong to a lobby which seems convinced it will always get its own way because it keeps threatening politicians with votes.