Cartoon by Paolo Lombardi

The new face of Europe’s radical right is on display in Italy

By Ben Hall

The Financial Times: Europe’s far right has a new, smiling face. Giorgia Meloni is on course to become Italy’s first far-right leader since Benito Mussolini was deposed in 1943.

Meloni’s party, the Brothers of Italy, has roots in the fascist-influenced politics of the extreme right that emerged after 1945. Now it looks likely to come first in parliamentary elections on September 25. Her rightwing coalition, formed with the League, led by nationalist Eurosceptic Matteo Salvini, and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, is set to win around 48 per cent of the vote against a divided left, according to an opinion poll for TV outlet SkyTG24.

Meloni stayed out of Mario Draghi’s 17-month national unity government, which collapsed in July. She cannily attacked its political contradictions, saying it could have been even more ambitious, while capitalising on Italians’ discontent with their political class. Support for the Brothers, which won only 4 per cent in the 2018 election, has risen sixfold, largely at the expense of the other rightwing parties which joined Draghi’s government.

Meloni’s objective during a torrid summer election campaign has been to reassure voters, Italy’s establishment, the markets and its western partners that she is no extremist and would safeguard Italy’s stability and its place in Europe. Last week she released a video in English, French and Spanish arguing that the Italian right had “handed fascism over to history for decades” and asserting her party was closer to Britain’s Conservatives, US Republicans or Israel’s Likud. The rightwing coalition’s albeit sketchy common policy programme vows support for the EU, the Atlantic alliance and Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression.

It would be a stretch to say the Brothers are a fascist party, but fascists are in it. A clip emerged on social media this week of a young Meloni praising Mussolini as a good politician. Nor has she disowned her party’s origins in the National Alliance, the heir to the post-fascist Italian Social Movement. Meloni has retained the movement’s tricolour flame symbol and talks about it as a source of pride. Detoxification has its limits and hard-right rhetoric still has its place. Speaking at a campaign rally for Spain’s far-right party Vox, Meloni railed against mass migration, foreign criminals, Islamic radicalism and the LGBT lobby.

Italy has strong independent institutions like the presidency, central bank and Treasury that act as technocratic guardrails for its populist politicians. But the most important check on executive power, the presidency, is under threat. The rightwing coalition wants to change the constitution to create a directly elected presidency, akin to the French model, although the details are unclear.

The right has long yearned for a strong leader. This time it could happen. It is conceivable that Meloni and her allies could win a two-thirds parliamentary majority, allowing them to change the constitution. The proposal might also go to a referendum. Parliament’s failed attempt in January to find a successor to Sergio Mattarella suggests the supposedly consensual appointment of the head of state has in any case become hopelessly politicised.

Reducing Italy’s chronic government instability through orderly constitutional change has its merits. But when Berlusconi last week said Mattarella would have to resign if a reform was approved — rather than, say, serve out his seven-year term before the change was introduced — it caused a storm. Berlusconi, a three-time premier who coveted the presidency for himself this year, said it was a statement of the obvious. Others saw it as a warning to Mattarella not to try to clip the wings of a rightwing government.

Berlusconi’s comment was a gift to the centre-left, which depicts the dangers of a rightwing government as creeping authoritarianism and marginalisation in Europe akin to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary rather than a fascist takeover. The Meloni camp was unimpressed.

It may have been a gaffe. Equally possible, Berlusconi, a pioneer of populist politics in Europe, was reminding Italians of his disruptive credentials. After all, he helped to pull the plug on the Draghi government. Although support for Forza Italia has shrunk to about 8 per cent, he sees himself as a kingmaker.

The election of a Mussolini admirer as Italian premier will create deep unease in EU capitals. The promise of large unfunded tax cuts — a big issue for Salvini’s League — and unspecified “revisions” to Italy’s €200bn EU recovery fund and reform programme will add to concerns. Meloni presents herself as disciplined and sensible. For Italy and for Europe, a government with three populist leaders is unlikely to be so.