Being subjected to vilification by the media and the left-liberal Establishment is among the occupational hazards of politicians on the Right of the political spectrum. This is particularly true of Europe, the home of the Left-Right divide that many other parts of the world find spurious.
The French Opposition leader, Marine Le Pen, the runner-up in this year’s presidential election, has had to wage unending battles to disabuse people of charges of being a fascist, a label that also carries the burden of collaborating with the enemy during World War II. She has also had to live down accusations — more applicable to the group that surrounded her pugnacious, but mercifully estranged, father — that her political impulses are pro-Vichy. The reference is to the nationalist grouping around Marshal Pétain that negotiated peace with Hitler after the French army was routed in 1940.
In Italy, a country that has an extremely rich experience of unstable post-War governments, the Right has always had to live down charges of taking its inspiration from Benito Mussolini’s fascists. Earlier, the charges and the fears generated by the media were largely academic in nature since the right-wing parties were fringe players in electoral politics. Now, the chickens have come home to roost with the victory of Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy, the leading force of the three-party alliance that has secured a majority of seats in this week’s election.
Although the Brothers of Italy has its origins in the post-War regroupment of a hard core of Mussolini’s fascists, Meloni’s style of leadership has very little resemblance to the neo-fascists that had surfaced in different parts of Europe after 1945. There is, in fact, very little that is menacing about Meloni. To most people, she appears as a friendly, ideologically committed, conservative politician. She may be a tad different from the outgoing prime minister who was a banker before being parachuted into the political hot seat by the European Establishment but then Mario Draghi never had to contest any election. He was the choice of Brussels-based Eurocrats fearful of both populism and the will of the people. Meloni has surfaced at the top of the political pile as a reaction to the stitch-up by Brussels.
The European Union may have had its origins in the noble ideals of averting conflict and forging a common market. However, since the 1990s, it has transformed itself into a monster super-State that has little or no respect for national sovereignty of the member states. Increasingly, armed with a post-national ideological agenda, the unelected Brussels Establishment has increasingly come into conflict with member states over national self-interest. The most celebrated conflict is the one involving Brussels and the government of Viktor Orbán in Hungary over matters as diverse as immigration and judicial appointments. In fact, so incensed was the EU with Orbán that it did all in its powers to secure his defeat in the elections. It failed, of course, and Orbán’s popular mandate was conclusively renewed by voters who resented EU’s overbearing ways.
For a body that attaches so much importance to democracy and what it regards as enlightened values, the EU is remarkably cussed when one of its member-states links national sovereignty to democracy. During a speech earlier this month at Princeton University that may go down in history as infamous, the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, was asked if she was concerned over the upcoming Italian election. Her reply was blunt: “If things go in a ‘difficult direction’ we have tools.” Hungary and Poland — two notable ‘difficult’ members — have experienced the subtle and not-so subtle ways in which Brussels has tried to make recalcitrance, sometimes born of democratic mandates, unrewarding.
On the face of it, the new Italian government may not immediately experience the coercive powers of the EU high priests. Although the coalition was elected to restore the country’s faith in faith, flag and family — all three anathema to the universalist EU dogma — there is no real danger of Meloni trying to prepare the groundwork for an eventual Italexit along the lines of the United Kingdom’s Brexit. Italy could do with the significant EU handouts and post-Covid relief packages to bolster its sagging economy. Nor is there danger that the coalition will suddenly become soft on Vladimir Putin — as one of its partners, the former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, may wish. What is more likely is the prospect of conflict between Rome and Brussels over refugees from North Africa.
With an estimated 250,000 legal and illegal asylum seekers already in Italy, there is legitimate concern that the country may become socially disturbed. This has already happened in Sweden — where another right-wing coalition is on the cusp of winning power. The fear and resentment of Italy becoming overwhelmed by a migrant problem was among the major factors behind the sharp swing to the Right in the recent election. Under the circumstances, Meloni has no alternative but to press for a combination of rigorous policing of Italy’s long coastline and pressure on Libya to stop it from being the launchpad for migrants from North Africa. Whether she will do it using the same tactics as Hungary, Poland and other east European countries or try to press for a combination of diplomacy and bribery will be watched closely.
To a large extent, it depends on whether or not the recent expressions of popular will in Europe force the EU to review its post-national evangelism. Whatever may have been the enlightened impulses of post-Maastricht EU, the awkward reality is that nationalism isn’t dead but very much alive in Europe, particularly in the states that constituted the old Soviet bloc. Additionally, the aggressive faithless secularism that the EU prefers is at odds with the Europe that still sees its civilisation as primarily Judaeo-Christian and White. There have been major shifts in attitudes, particularly among the young, in the past three decades. Yet, these shifts are still skin deep and could easily be upturned if a fear of the future is combined with a vigorous assertion of national identity.
