[WATCH] Labour supporters gather outside party headquarters in Hamrun

Labour Party supporters defied orders from their own party and gathered outside the headquarters in Hamrun in a show of support for Joseph Muscat.

The large crowd amassed in the street in front of the headquarters, chanting Joseph Muscat’s name, ‘Viva l-Labour’ and singing the party anthem that had almost fallen out of fashion under Muscat’s modernising effort.

Labour followers show their support to Joseph Muscat outside party HQ

Supporters chanted: ‘We will continue governing, halleluiah’, and ‘Thank you, thank you, very much’.

Earlier in the day, PL officials told MaltaToday that the party had urged supporters not to turn up. Muscat later spoke on One Radio, informing supporters that he would be visiting them in their localities.

While PL supporters sang hymns of support for Muscat in Hamrun, a few kilometres away in Valletta, protesters were calling for the Prime Minister’s resignation as they blocked MPs from leaving parliament building.

Tension in the country has escalated as protests calling for the PM’s resignation intensified since the arrest of businessman Yorgen Fenech in relation to Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder.

The Prime Minister has said he will resign in January after the PL elects a new leader but protesters are asking for his immediate departure.

Pressure has been growing on Muscat after Fenech implicated Keith Schembri, the PM’s ex chief of staff, in the murder. Police interrogated Schembri at length but released him.