Malta is a successful small independent country, the smallest in the EU. But when it sought its independence from Britain, it was told it was too wee and too poor to make a go of it.
"Malta held an independence referendum in 1964, where Yes won a marginal victory – about 55% of the vote and 42% of registered voters voted for independence. But many of those who voted ‘No’ did support some kind of independence – there were disagreements about the form it should take. For some years during the transition to independence, Malta charged Britain £14 million a year for the use of the naval base.
In 1974, when Mintoff was again Prime Minister, Malta became a Republic and in 1979, the Brits finally left – on the day now known as Freedom Day.
Malta started out on its journey to independence from a position of weakness. Its economy was extremely dependent on British defence spending. There was a lot of poverty on the island. It did not have many natural resources to draw on. Its population was tiny.
Yet it pushed ahead with independence and has made a go of it, with a smaller percentage of its population now at risk of poverty and exclusion than in the UK. "