New Italian government: little regard is paid to what voters really think

Italy is like a house in which for years there have been leaks that nobody noticed, a house that could suddenly collapse. That suddenly, but inevitably, collapses.

To understand what has happened, we must first take on board that establishment politics has taken its own stability, as well as its ability to contain discontent, for granted. As the Italian house collapsed, these politicians have continued to demonstrate arrogance and contempt in the face of people’s fears and the progressive impoverishment of the nation, and especially of the south. The government “experts” have given up seeking genuine communication with people – to such an extent that we currently find ourselves wondering what happened to the now threadbare relationship of trust between the elite and the people, politicians and voters.

Over recent years, governments have responded to popular unease by attempting to redistribute some of the resources, but this was seen as nothing more than handouts to people, so as to take on populist parties on their own turf. The unspoken message went: “Be good and you, too, will be able to grab a few crumbs.” But the time for handouts is over and this behaviour has only increased support for the Lega and the Five Star Movement (M5S), both of which promised to “give back what had been wrongfully taken away”.

What we are seeing today stems from what happened yesterday. It didn’t come from nowhere, like some unexpected meteorite. Similarly, what happens tomorrow depends on how far we can really get a grip on what is happening now.

The fact that even now, despite everything, scant consideration is given to the choices made by people, and the reasons underlying those choices, is revealed by the attitude taken to M5S and Lega voters. It’s identical to that adopted towards those who voted for Silvio Berlusconi in the past and constitutes an air of superiority which assumes people have been conned without realising it.

But there has been no con trick, either now or before; just discontent that is no longer manageable. And if there is no specific project for growth for the south of Italy in the Lega-M5S manifesto, it’s also true that politics at the national level long ago gave up the south as a lost cause. At the election in March, the promise that paid off best was the reddito di cittadinanza, the minimum income for citizens, which tackled the impoverishment compounded by the crisis of the past 10 years by promising a return to the era of welfare policies for the south. The real question now will be to see if whoever governs in the coming years has a proper plan for preventing Italy’s south taking a nosedive. Because if it collapses, then the national settlement goes to the wall. (And the south does not help itself with declarations and promises about tackling mafias and corruption with an iron fist: instead, it should devise a robust, investment-friendly business framework.)

As all this plays out, political Europe barely seems to exist. Each nation state plays its cards regardless of, and often to the detriment of, the others with whom it shares the same currency. The Italian political class bears considerable responsibility for the situation, but the failure of European leadership and the triumph of national selfishness are the fundamental problems. It is also true, of course, that in desperate situations there is nothing better than an external scapegoat. Europe is an excellent scapegoat, especially if one plays upon the increased cost of living after the introduction of the single currency, which has not led to a corresponding rise in wages.

Europe’s interference will be blamed in the event of a failure to apply the two mainstays of the new government’s contract with the people: a minimum income for citizens (M5S) and flat tax (Lega). It will be easy for the “Government of Change”, which is what the Lega and the M5S call its creation, to make a suffering and impatient electorate believe that its path is blocked by an arch-enemy – Europe. The hope is that it will still be possible to prove the opposite through facts – that Europe, with all its problems, is now the only house in which it is still possible to grow.

It was with these reflections in mind that I reread the Ventotene Manifesto, a 1941 call for a united Europe. The one thing that struck me more than any other was the concern expressed by its authors, European founding father Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi, about people’s possible unease over such a project and how to avoid its being exploited for political ends.

“Reactionary forces […] in critical moments will masquerade and proclaim their love of freedom, peace, the general wellbeing and the poorer classes. We have already seen how in the past they sneaked in behind popular movements and then paralysed, diverted and converted them into the exact opposite. They will, without any doubt, be the most dangerous force that we will have to come to terms with.”

These words were written nearly 80 years ago, but they seem to describe what has taken place in Italy in the past few weeks between the Lega and the M5S – or, to put it better, between a reactionary force (the Lega) that has swallowed up a popular movement (the M5S). I was put in mind of the words of Beppe Grillo, the founder of M5S, who, on more than one occasion over the years, has emphasised that the very existence of M5S – accused by many of itself being a populist party – made it a bulwark against the most dangerous populist excesses, such as those demonstrated by Matteo Salvini’s Lega. Never has an analysis been more mistaken.