Trump, Russia, and the war on woke: Inside the weird world of Neville Gafà

Many are those lining up to be Labour’s pallbearers.

Former ministers like Evarist Bartolo certainly are dusting their suit: in the last weeks his daily missives ticked the boxes on summer’s energy blackouts, the alleged prevalence of cocaine as recreational drug of choice, and Malta’s flirtation with NATO’s parliamentary assembly.

And those on the left of Labour point at the inevitable electoral cycle for a party burnt out by lax governance standards and now corruption charges against top brass and its disgraced former leader, Joseph Muscat.

It is not without irony that Robert Abela – like Lawrence Gonzi a prime minister elected by an internal party election – seems to be looking at a similar fate as the last Nationalist prime minister: asserting his leadership on a party riveted by unspoken feuds, lacking the gel provided by a leader’s vision, and contending with national problems of ‘overheating’ – more economic growth, more foreign labour, more energy consumption, all putting pressure on national infrastructure.

And in this second summer of intermittent blackouts for Labour, more party critics are sharpening their claws.

Neville Gafà, a one-time henchman in Joseph Muscat’s secretariat, thinks Labour is in urgent need for renewal, suffering from ‘too much government’ and ‘less party’ since its election in 2013.

Neville Gafà with Keith Schembri during the 'best of times'

But you won’t find Gafà, who now inhabits that Maltese ecosystem of mischief-makers on social media, blame Muscat (least of all the chief of staff who served him). He too is lining up as a pallbearer for Labour. Except that it is hard to think that a pro-Russia voice, “anti-woke”, Eurosceptic, pro-Trump/Erdogan/Putin strongman admirer, should be the one to advocate for Labour’s renewal.

On the placard newspaper that Facebook is in Malta, voices like Gafà’s are clipping and cut through the cacophony of attention-seekers. Politics has multiple registers, from the PM’s speeches down to the hum and haw of the peasantry. But with people like Gafà, who shills for his masters, a new frequency is added to Labour’s dirge, one that can sometimes rise above the hum of the mobile power generators propping up Malta’s ailing power substations.

‘Socialist’ on the far right

What is certainly particular about Gafà is how his brand of identitarian populism is so much at odds with the party that Labour portrayed itself as under Muscat. Which is not to say that big-tent parties do not house right-wingers.

But up until his master’s resignation in 2019 after the arrest of Yorgen Fenech over the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, Gafà’s Facebook cover photo sported the words ‘I Am A Socialist’. All along he had been tasked by the Muscat administration as a diplomatic freelancer to Libya to help broker an agreement to relay coordinates of migrant boats from the Armed Forces of Malta to the Libyan coastguard. Dozens of boats were stopped from entering the Maltese search and rescue area, arguably an illegal act of non-refoulement.

Neville Gafà attending Robert Abela’s swearing-in in 2020. His employment with the OPM was terminated shortly afterwards.

Controversially, Gafà nurtured contacts with sanctioned militia leaders like Libyan warlord Haithem Tajouri, and once faced accusations that he had extorted cash from Libyans to issue them with visas for medical care. On the latter, Gafà has not faced any charges, despite losing a defamation case against the stories that revealed his role in the visa racket, and the magistrate urging police to investigate claims that he had attempted to bribe witnesses.

Chris Fearne, as then health minister, sacked Gafà from the Foundation for Medical Services where he had been officially placed. When in 2020 the deputy prime minister ran for leader, Gafà called on Labour delegates to pick a “continuity candidate” who could deliver on Muscat’s legacy – arguably not Fearne. Then in 2020, after his repudiation by Robert Abela, the renegade started flying his true colours.

Paid by Russia? ‘I wish...’

On X he regularly saluted far-right firebrand Matteo Salvini, posted videos of Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Italian far-right Fratelli d’Italia, toasted Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan – because he supported the Libyan Government of National Accord – and started posting on all his social media an unending stream of Russian propaganda posts: lauding Vladimir Putin, his Hungarian pet Viktor Orban, reposting Russian foreign ministry updates on the war in Ukraine but also celebrating ‘Great Patriotic War’ nostalgia (rather than salute Malta’s role in WWII); and deriding Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his supporters in the EU’s leadership and inside NATO. He comfortably posts messages like ‘Your enemy is not Russia’ or hashtags #IStandWithRussia.

It is hard to think that Gafà is not being paid for this endless stream of propaganda.

“I wish I was being paid,” he says, brushing off the suggestion in a telephone interview with MaltaToday which asked him if his social media commentary was financed by Russian misinformation agents.

Gafà lauds Russian President Vladimir Putin

“I am doing this because I think Malta will end up facing serious consequences, and unofficially I send these warnings to the government – that a small country needs all states and cannot just break all ties with Russia.”

As he tells MaltaToday, Gafà stands against the EU’s support of Ukraine, and calls the Union a puppet of the United States, along with the mainstream media which he claims does not speak the truth about the Russian war. “What happened was a revolution in the Donbass in 2014, that provoked the attacks from Ukraine on those people, and for which Russia never retaliated. Until 2020. Yet no coverage is given on the massacres that happened there, and that is why the EU shuts down RT and Sputnik. Do you call that democratic?”’

Cheering Russia’s ‘family values’

When the European elections got underway, Gafà posted celebratory photos on the advance of the far-right, gleeful at the grassroots rebellion against the EU’s leaders over migration.

In his metamorphosis into a fervent pro-Russian, anti-EU critic (“The EU is not my country”, he posts), Gafà also supplied Facebook with ‘anti-woke’ posts on abortion and LGBTQI people (“the widespread propaganda of the LGBT movement with its ‘rainbow flag’ has nothing to do with the actual rainbow… There is a war for human souls underway”). Some quotes are sourced from the countless YouTube profiteers, such as Andrew Tate lookalike Bobby Risto, a Macedonian YouTuber who converted to Islam – like Gafà.

Gafà formed part of a Labour government with a trailblazing record of of LGBTIQ reforms but now he reveals himself to be a conservative who disagrees with same-sex adoptions

Again, Gafà reveals himself to having been a conservative inside Labour’s otherwise trailblazing record of LGBTQI reforms. “I believe in values. My children today are adults but thank God I do not have young kids today, who would suffer the EU’s gender indoctrination,” he says, using the word adopted by all those kicking back against gender mainstreaming. “I disagree with same-sex adoption, for example.”

Yet it was Joseph Muscat who legislated same-sex adoption, a feat Gafà does not criticise. But again, as we tiptoe back to Russia, Gafà suggests “family values” are a big foundation of Vladimir Putin’s nation-building. “Things are totally different in Russia,” he says.

Like what?

No gay pride marches.

“I don’t think it’s right that some half-naked man gets to parade down Republic Street in Valletta… and you might say this is what Putin says, that Russians do not accept something like this, not in the way it might happen in America.”

Gafà’s MAGA content on X

And then there’s Trump of course.

When Donald Trump was shot at in July, Gafà reposted Alex Jones and copy-pasted ‘Deep State’ conspiraces. On X.com Gafà runs a parallel anti-Biden, pro-Trump stream of pure MAGA content, and much of this content is curiously all traced back to pro-Russian shills: “Trump just won the election. Fuck you Dems. Swing at the king, ya best not miss.”

Gafà's Facebook post lauding Trump's victory

And it all makes sense… until you realise that, between March and November 2020 – the COVID year – Gafà was the sole user of the Twitter hashtag #GetThisManiacOffTheStage, in 24 tweets denigrating President Trump and tub-thumping for a Democrat win in that year’s election. “Everything single thing he says is a life, #YoureFired”, says his last tweet.

A Facebook post against Trump

Strange, but true.

“Yes,” he laughs. “I was a critic of Trump; today I admit, I was wrong, I’ve opened my eyes. We know who the ‘deep state’ supports, and we know Trump wants to break the ‘deep state’ and the CIA. John F. Kennedy was killed by the ‘deep state’ and they tried doing the same wioth Trump.

“Trump is the one who can stop the war in Ukraine – because he treats Putin as one of the world’s biggest leaders, and both men respect each other.”

Crisis inside Labour

Inside Labour, Gafà rails against anyone opposed to Joseph Muscat’s legacy.

First it was against the Labour ‘establishment’ and foreign minister Evarist Bartolo over the latter’s unstinting criticism of Keith Schembri. “Don’t think we have forgotten that you once attacked the Prime Minister. Even while you led a delegation abroad! Before you judge Mr Schembri, I suggest you compare what you have achieved with his achievements for the good of Malta.”

More recently, he started to take apart Robert Abela’s administration’s soldiers.

A special place of dislike was reserved for former Labour MEP Cyrus Engerer and his husband Randolph Debattista, the MP and CEO of the Labour Party.

Gafà says his criticism of Cyrus Engerer and husband Randolph de Battista is 'political'

When asked whether his posting of the couple on holiday or kissing while criticising their politics is intended at employing homophobic prejudice, Gafà replies with disarming alacrity. “No, there is certainly nothing wrong in them kissing. My criticism towards Randolph and Cyrus is political – I won’t judge anyone who is gay.”

His targets have also included Labour top brass like President Ramona Attard, OPM communications chief Aleander Balzan, and recently Labour’s youth leader Maria Ellul over a Facebook comment agreeing with a post criticising the two MEPs that did not support rival Roberta Metsola’s re-election as president of the European Parliament.

Yet today Gafà can fire off his broadsides at a party that is in trouble for having to failed to renew itself substantially beyond the political crisis provoked by the fall of Muscat, the man he cheerleads. Only that Gafà does not believe reconciliation with this dreaded past needs to take place.

Instead, he views Labour’s ‘Gonzi phase’ as a sign for panic inside the party. Guns blazing, he has taken aim at Robert Abela’s administration’s soft tissue. “Labour spent 25 years criticising PN governments because nobody was accountable… Now we’ve turned exactly into that administration, a classic example being the power blackouts of the last days,” Gafà posted, calling out energy and environment minister Miriam Dalli.

Gafà's Facebook post calling out Energy Minister Miriam Dalli

Weeks of intermittent blackouts have revealed an ailing power distribution system, buckling under the pressure of increased demand – read, population – a corollary to right-wing concerns about migrant labour.

Even the language Gafà espouses shape-shifts, denigrating the “clique in Castille” (which he once was a member of) for having taken total control of Television Malta (what’s new?) over a news article that reported record high summer temperatures, to suggest that heightened demand for cooling appliances will lead to blackouts.

Ultimately, his target is Robert Abela, the prime minister under whom so many rifts inside Labour are manifesting since the decimation of the Labour super-majority in the 2024 European elections.

“I’m speaking on behalf of those 33,000 who chose not to vote Labour this year. They see Abela not governing as he promised, and the arrogance inside Labour is greater than it ever was with the PN towards the end of 2013.

“Unless there is an earthquake inside Labour, it faces the same fate as that of the PN, which scraped through an election in 2008 with just 1,500 votes and was then trounced by a majority of 36,000.”

Like many political observers, Gafà may have gazed into the crystal ball. But it’s hard to think that Labour might want to take a leaf out of his book.