leader of Malta's Labour Party who served twice as prime minister (1955–58; 1971–84).

Educated at the University of Malta and Hertford College, Oxford, Mintoff was general secretary of the Malta Labour Party in 1936–37 and worked as a civil engineer in Great Britain during the Italian–German siege of Malta in 1941–43. Back in Malta, he practiced as an architect and helped reorganize the Labour Party in 1944, becoming its leader in 1949. He served as Malta's prime minister and minister of finance from 1955 to 1958 but resigned in 1958 to lead the Maltese Liberation Movement, which spearheaded the drive for independence, achieved in 1964, within the Commonwealth of Nations.

From 1962 to 1971 Mintoff was leader of the opposition to the Nationalist government and then in 1971 again became prime minister. Aggressively proclaiming Malta's sovereignty, he posed financial and other demands to the British that forced British and NATO evacuation of the island's bases by March 1979. By the end of the 1970s he had expelled British journalists and many businessmen and drawn close to the leftist governments in Libya and Algeria. But relations with Libya suffered as a result of a dispute over the continental-shelf boundary. In the 1981 elections Mintoff's Labour Party kept its majority in spite of losing the popular vote. Mintoff resigned as prime minister in 1984.