The Chief Minister reacted to the statement from the GSD saying: “The GSD’s reaction to the announcement that financial stability is restored is laughable. They are knowingly trying to mislead the electorate by mixing the return of financial stability in recurrent income and expenditure with debt. They know this is mixing apples with pears but the GSD obviously realise that they cannot win the argument by comparing apples with apples or pears with pears, and they therefore go down the route of Trumpian misinformation try to mislead the electorate.
“The same is true about Brexit. Mr Azopardi lets himself, his Party and Gibraltar down by trying to deal with the sensitive issue of Brexit like a pound-shop Nigel Farage. He talks about UK “bagging a deal” and ignores the difficult issues that arise in our negotiation and the reality that the GSLP Liberals would not do a deal which was bad or sovereignty sensitive. If he is saying he would have done a deal already he is in effect saying I am being too tough in defending our sovereignty and that he would be softer, which is unsurprising given the GSD’s track record and his own view that an “Andorra-Style-Solution” is not Joint Sovereignty, something I and the GSLP Liberals would never accept.
“Finally, it is helpful to see Mr Azopardi continue to double down in making his Party part of Team McGrail in that Inquiry. I have no doubt that the final result of the Inquiry will find I acted properly throughout and Mr Azopardi may regret that he has been quite so forthright in backing Mr McGrail’s alleged versions of events. Time will likely make all of Mr Azopardi’s statements on the McGrail Inquiry hostages to fortune that will not age well, like Mr Azopardi’s own political career.”
