Social Europe: Can the left really stop Salvini?

The turnout in Emilia-Romagna was up more than 20 percentage points from five years ago. This made a huge difference. The strong personal victory of Bonaccini—whose electoral list with his name on it added almost 6 per cent to the progressive tally—could at first sight be explained by the local tradition of good governance. This is represented by the modello Emiliano,characterised by a tempered capitalism embedded in a social-democratic governance with a strong left-wing subculture.[...]

Their full name, ‘Sardines against Salvini,’ tells a lot about their nature and genesis as well as their will to counter a far-right victory in a left-wing bastion. In some ways, they recall the mobilisation of grassroots progressive groups in the United States since the election of Donald Trump as president. This complex and variegated activism, a ‘middle America’ rebooting democracy—made up of Women’s Marches, Black Lives Matter, local canvassing, and a spontaneous citizens’ engagement in cities and suburbs of many states—has largely been missing on European soil. [...]

As the resistance of the last bastions against the European populist trend becomes increasingly fragile, it is time for progressive forces to find new forms of mobilisation—without mirroring demagogic nationalism and its policies—and to learn a few lessons transnationally and from Italy. The left needs to regain its capacity to create a shared political culture, to focus on integrative responses and to challenge rising populism with its traditional political weapons: rights, solidarity, equality, democracy.

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openDemocracy: Death of a movement

On 26 January, in both Emilia-Romagna and Calabria, M5S came third; its share of the vote was respectively 4.7% and 6.3%. This was an especially bad showing. The starred movement received considerably less support than the Democratic Party (PD), the junior member in Italy’s M5S-led government: it trailed behind the social democrats by a jaw dropping 30% in the northern region (PD won there with 34.7%) and a striking 9.4% in the deep south, where PD, despite receiving the most votes for a single party (15.2%), still lost to the centre-right alliance commandeered by Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. [...]

Jeremy Corbyn’s stance on Brexit, an age-defining issue, was negatively paradigmatic: by not sticking to the same take, whichever it might have been, throughout the entire exit process, the London socialist dug his political grave with an invisible spade. He didn’t even know he was holding one. A Eurosceptic all his life, Corbyn strangely campaigned to stay in Europe; then, at the time of triggering Article 50, MPs were bullied into voting for it. Eventually, Corbyn conceded that a second referendum was on his party’s cards, making matters shockingly worse. In other words, the Islington North MP was the only one in the country to swerve and proudly leave conspicuous red skid marks on British roads; the more these stood out, the more drivers were alerted to them and steered clear – frightened. Change red to yellow, and you’ve got a M5S recipe for failure – just as tasty as Labour’s.

Much has been said abroad about another Italian movement, an unofficial one, originating from civic society – the so-called ‘Sardines’, who packed Italy’s squares, especially in the north and centre, to oppose the right’s harsh rhetoric. Their contribution to PD’s exploits was tangible, but can be overstated. It certainly revived interest in politics among those who don’t vote or who stopped a long time ago, in a similar fashion to early-day M5S – these voters saw that the red party was the only bastion against the proposed policies of the hard-right (the self-styled liberal conservatism of Forza Italia does little to curb them). But M5S’ botched basic income policy did a lot to dent the movement’s reputation. The south of Italy can see it does not deliver; the larger a family the less the M5S-concocted basic income makes a difference. And so, in the absence of a clear vision as how to curb unemployment, why vote for them still?

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UnHerd: Populism in Italy is far from defeated

But now Salvini has been stalled. Cue much talk about the decline of populism. “Peak Populism?” asked The Times in its leader, in the shadow of his defeat. It is not the first time this question has been asked, of course. In the aftermath of Marine Le Pen’s defeat to Emmanuel Macron in 2017, many observers drew the same conclusion; populism had finally been kicked into decline. But then it continued to consolidate across much of Europe, not only at the national level but also winning a record number of seats in the European Parliament last spring. [...]

But is this really the case? There is certainly no doubt that the vibrant, youth-led movement played a role but precisely how much of a role is up for debate. Compared to the last election the Left’s share of the vote only increased by 2-points. The Right’s jumped by nearly 14-points while Salvini and Lega walked away with a new record share of the vote, as did the ultra Right Brothers of Italy who saw their support jump more than four-fold. [...]

If Five Star continue to decline then the centre-Left may be the beneficiary as Italy becomes more polarised between Left and Right. Either way, the defection of Five Star voters to the Left arguably reflected not so much the discovery of a new liberal formula for fighting populism but more simply a governing populist party failing to manage the transition from being an outsider to an insider governing party.

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