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The Brussels' Candidate (Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The international response to Giorgia Meloni’s (amply predicted) victory in Sunday’s Italian elections can be divided into two camps: those on the liberal Left fear that a centre-right Meloni-led government will plunge Italy into a Hungary-style “illiberal democracy”, while those on the Right hail her rise to power as a mortal threat to the EU’s “globalist” regime. Both sides are as wrong as each other.
Perhaps the most telling reaction to the election has been that of the financial markets: indifference. The Milan Stock Exchange was actually rising on Monday morning, while the spread between Italian and German 10-year government bond experienced a minor uptick, but is no higher than it was a month ago. The markets clearly don’t expect Meloni to deviate much from the macroeconomic path set out for the country by its technocrats in Brussels and Frankfurt, and locked in place by Mario Draghi — let alone lay siege to the EU as a whole.
Rightly so. Meloni has gone out of her way to express wholehearted support for the European Union, the Euro-Atlantic partnership and Nato, including voting for sending weapons to Ukraine. On all the major issues of the day, the markets are correct in believing that she will toe the establishment’s line. Hence their relative calm — in stark contrast to the turbulence that followed the 2018 election, which brought to power the Five Star Movement and the Lega, which at the time still held rather eurosceptical views (before they were pummelled into submission by the EU establishment).
Meloni’s pro-establishment approach to economic policy isn’t just due to a lack of imagination on her behalf, though she’s always held rather mainstream views on the matter. It’s first and foremost due to the fact that she’s fully aware that Italy, by virtue of its adherence to the single currency, is no longer a sovereign country, and that therefore she needs the support of the EU establishment to stay in power. She has, in effect, learned the lesson of the 2018 “populist” Five Star-Lega government, when the European authorities resorted to a wide array of tools — including financial and political pressure — to crush any attempts to deviate from the status quo.
During a recent talk at Princeton University, EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, spelt out this concept. When asked if she was concerned about the upcoming election in Italy, she replied: “If things go in ‘a difficult direction’, we have tools [to deal with the situation]”. In doing so, she revealed just how the EU’s ruling elites view member states: not as sovereign countries but as protectorates.
Meloni understands this. A good number of Italians, however, also understand this, and share the financial market’s assessment: Italian democracy has become so constrained it no longer matters who wins the elections. For far away from the screeching headlines, the most striking aspect of the election was, in fact, the poor turnout — 64%, the lowest in Italy’s history. This means a third of Italians sat them out; they have given up on democracy. This number is only bound to grow — a devastating indictment of the manner in which the EU has hollowed out Italian democracy.
In this sense, Meloni’s victory shouldn’t be overstated. While it’s true that, with 26% of the votes (up from 4.4% in 2018), Brothers of Italy is by far the country’s largest party — followed by the Partito Democratico (19%) and the Five Star Movement (15.6%) — it is also a far cry from the 32.6% obtained by the Five Star in the 2018 elections. Moreover, if we look at overall numbers, the three parties of the centre-Right coalition — Brothers of Italy, Lega and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia — collectively received virtually the same number of votes as in 2018: just over 12 million. So there’s been no massive “Right-wing shift” among the Italian electorate, as several analysts have implied; in fact, what we have witnessed is mostly a reshuffling of votes among centre-Right parties.
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SubscribeIt’s really sad to see how the technocrats, in their supreme and unerring arrogance, have spent decades advancing their agenda in secret — stripping free nations of any vestiges of the principles and ideas that brought about the greatest prosperity and advancement humankind has ever known.
And they now confidently show their hand, knowing that all real power has been funnelled up out of the reach of voters; the ‘direction of travel’ cannot be altered by any pushback, it has been systematically insulated from democratic feedback.
And so the people give up, and many stop voting, because why bother. The west is dying, and the technocrats have done this to us. They’ve destroyed the pinnacle of human culture on the altar of their own God complexes. It breaks my heart, and makes me angry.
We have seen this kind of arrogance — which drives totalitarianism and all of history’s dystopic fits of oppression and mass murder — allowed to run freely in individual nations. We’ve even seen it done to a few nations at once, as in the Soviet Union. We have never seen it done to the entire world at once, which is what is being attempted now.
I think the instinct has always been there, but the twin pillars of globalism & technology have now made it possible to subdue and conquer the rich, free world. Globalism allowed every arrogant, narcissistic technocrat and sociopath to connect up, and to unite in their desire to overthrow free peoples, pillage all resources, and run the world by their decree alone. In the 1950s a government wishing to subdue free western societies would require the military to turn against their own citizens, an unlikely scenario in one place, let alone to engineer across the globe at once. Technology has removed that necessity, it’s now possible to subdue a free people simply by controlling banking and tech. So sad to reflect on the fact that our civilisation is being brought down by the traitors in our own house.
Nice summary.
Simple-minded conspiracy-porn clichés. Who are these technocrats and traitors? Care to name them?
Gates , Bezos , Zuckerberg , Soros , the Davos cartel, the WHO , the list is lengthy !
especially WEF
Name them all? …well we would be here all day Frank, but here’s a taster of the mindset, from the mouth of just one exemplar, Herr Juncker:
“I have ideas that can make the human race existence within our 100 years better. Period.”
…
“We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don’t understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.”
…
“If it’s a Yes, we will say ‘on we go’, and if it’s a No we will say ‘we continue’.” [this gem was in 2005, about the French referendum on the Lisbon Treaty]
…
“Monetary policy is a serious issue. We should discuss this in secret, in the Eurogroup […] I’m ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious […] I am for secret, dark debates.”
…
You see what I mean? — this is a mindset, a God complex. Very similar to Klaus Schwab recently waving his arms around whilst bellowing “The future is built by us, here in this room!” to the assembled Davos crowd. They really believe they are born to rule. And the mindset is not new. Schwab’s WEF was itself just a crib off the ideas of the Club of Rome, and Limits to Growth. Worth a google.
It’s so refreshing to see challenges, such as the one you’ve replied to, thoroughly destroyed. Thanks for taking the time and trouble to do so.
Simple minded cultist, indoctrinated by what you’ve been told to think by the BBC & CNN.
Thank you for this and your further comment below.
Bang on madam.
Very well summarised. I guess that it was not a secret agenda, as the EU technocrats have been reworking the same proposals rejected in general elections to be submitted again under a different banner until they were approved. Once approved, they block any attempt to go backward. Very cunning, except that people start to be really pissed off.
Government is a funny thing. If “good enough” government is supplied many people don’t mind slavery.
That is the lynchpin of their suasion.
The issue is that, at a certain point, jurisdictions that can vote in a government tend to be able to vote in benefits for themselves and costs for everyone else. After this realization, the deal just gets worse and worse.
The answer for me, I think government should be limited to units which need each other for their well being. And smaller is better than larger. For Canada, perhaps that means 13 Canadas…
So sad to see the EU triggering the slow death of European countries and their cultures.
Any country with its own currency in the EU must surely know that if they join the Euro then they are only one mis-step away from a near-irreversible colonisation.
Once they go with the euro, they are instantly colonised. There is no realistic way of leaving once you are in. The only remaining question is whether they get to sit on the top table with Germany, nodding through the rule changes or on the kids table.
Thanks God we never joined and got out of the EU when we had the chance.
Spoken like a true Englishman. You know nothing about being colonised, and you see “colonisation” in a mere currency. Hilarious.
That was just a fraction of what colonization mean, but a part that is very relevant to that conversation. It is sad that you are not able to understand that.
Spoken like a troll. Nothing to add to a constructive discussion, completely uninterested in engaging in a meaningful debate, and utterly clueless.
JJ Barnett has responded to your nonsense above, with specific examples of that which you deny exists. You have of course, like every worthless troll before you, conveniently ignored his response and moved on to your next juvenile pop at someone with intelligence and self-awareness you can only dream of.
Italy has always flirted with fascists. And here they are at it again. Seems like their culture is flourishing. And what was especially British about recent events in Leicester, with all your non-EU immigrants?
After its disastrous embracing of Mussolini’s Fascism . Italy has since tended to flirt with various forms of socialism !
Hmm, it seams that you do not understand fascism. There is a small but significant difference between fascism and socialism and even bigger between socialism and social state a.k. welfare state.
It’s not just fascism he doesn’t understand …
We’ve allowed our country’s culture to die without the EU through non-EU immigration and now that we have left our government is trying even harder to speed up the death. The main fault is with national governments. Poland and Hungary are being pressured by the EU to follow their doctrine but they have largely withheld, it just takes a bit of will power from national governments.
I am a Pole and I wish your country all the will power necessary to restore your country.
This is the kind of analysis I pay for Unherd in order to read. It could be wrong, but it’s a well reasoned case. Maybe we’re all being too optimistic. Maybe this Unherd article is correct: https://unherd.com/2022/09/the-eu-is-sleepwalking-into-anarchy/
The saddest line though is this one: “Italian democracy has become so constrained it no longer matters who wins the elections.”
Increasingly, I think this could be said about most of the EU. Maybe even about America. With 3 teenage children, this is what distresses me the most.
even with all its problems, Italy has less inequality than the UK, and a higher quality of life.
I like the Italian quality of life when I am there, but most Italians don’t really see it that way. They have to use the appalling roads and battle state and EU bureacracy daily which takes the gloss off chianti on the terrace. In Naples the quality of life is impacted by the huge numbers of children who receive no education at all after age 13. As for inequality that is difficult to gauge since such an enormous part of the economy is hidden and “under the table”. (That is assuming “inequality” is even a problem of course).
So perhaps we should rewrite the famous quote….. “I’d rather die equally on my knees than live free on my feet”?
Perhaps in Chiantishire if nowhere else.
I went to Sicily a couple of years ago. Absolute war zone. Rubble everywhere. Begging. People selling their possessions in the street. Rubbish everywhere.
So a high level of equality then. Sounds great!
The EU set the course of events which now progress to ultimate destruction, and nothing can recall those actions which were finalized into motion in 2020
I think of these impotent; poor last gasp of the decent citizens of Europe as trying to stop the utter destruction their overlords have wrought intentionally on them. But it is too late.
Think of Giorgia as the USAF B-52 Colonel in Dr Strangeglove who is giving his Cowboy yells and waving his hat proudly as he rides the A-Bomb to earth – and so the destruction of himself and all humanity…. Symbolic, but futile, and yet going down proudly….
Major ‘King’ Kong, aka: Rodeo star Slim Pickens of immortal fame!
or Col Paul Tibbetts in Enola Gay… at least that was real!
Funny how the chap who dropped the other one on Nagasaki is virtually unknown, as is his aircraft.
“The EU set the course of events which now progress to ultimate destruction …”
Doomsday cult porn. Like some religious looper haranguing passers-by about the end of the world.
Putin is threatening to nuke us, and there you are, feverishly banging on about how the EU is the ultimate destroyer of everything …
Unreal mate
“it no longer matters who wins the elections” — This has become a widespread thing in “democracies.” Modern media tools combined with global money create fakes and servants that are everywhere.
without the euro, which gives investors the confidence to invest in northern Italy, the country would probably soon slide into turkish lira style devaluation, 70% inflation and 10,000 euros a year income.
Devaluation is the medium-term correction mechanism for countries who have made economic mistakes.
Democracy allows better governments to be voted in that correct these mistakes – leaving the benefits of self-determination in place.
EU colonisation eliminates democracy in perpetuity.
Actually, much to the disdain of economists, and a lesson to them, was the fact that in latter times of the Lira era, with the advent of electronic bid/ offer in italian ” Tesori” ( govt bonds: Italy was one of the first countries to have an electronic govt bond dealing/ trading system), the currency and bond pricing volatility, backed by very large domestic retail bond holdings, and massive volume, made the Lira/ Tesori markets very attractive!
You pour fire and brimstone on everybody, Mr Fazi. But what would you do if you were the Italian Prime Minister? Ah wait: Euro exit and MMT!
Oh well…
A very good article , thanks for it.
Thomas Fazi wrote, “What will she have to show for it? Not much, given [Giorgia] Meloni’s unlikely to challenge the EU’s economic framework and the fact that Brussels, along with its handmaiden, the Italian president, will be keeping a very close eye on ‘rule-of-law’ issues. ”
Meloni will not likely challenge the EU’s economic framework because Italy is dependent on financial support from the European Commission (EC).
If Meloni successfully upgrades the Italian economic system so that its performance exceeds that of the German system, then she can sever that financial dependence. She then would be free to take the necessary steps to safeguard the future of Italy.
Meloni has 3 equally important tasks: enforcing the borders, distancing Italy from the United States, and upgrading the economic system.
Success on the third task will facilitate achieving the first two tasks.
The second task must be accomplished by 2040. By 2040, the United States will cease being a Western nation, due to open borders. Most Americans will reject Western culture, and Hispanic culture will dominate. Currently, in California, 40% of the residents are Hispanic. Most residents of the state already reject Western culture, and Hispanic culture dominates.
Meloni must immediately begin distancing Italy from the United States, including exiting the American security architecture.
Get more info about this issue.
Unrestricted immigration is a major problem for the U.S. However, Latino immigrants don’t really threaten the cultural fabric in the sense of bringing a hostile ideology or religious view of the world that’s inimical to that of the U.S. It’s the educational and material poverty of many of the immigrants that puts a strain on the states and municipalities burdened with absorbing them.
How can Meloni upgrade the Italian economy so that it’s performance exceeds that of Germany? Don’t get me wrong— I’d love to see it complete with Germany.
Markets tend to react with indifference to events that are “amply predicted”, so maybe this reaction of the markets is not so “telling”.
“Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com’è, bisogna che tutto cambi.” Tancredi Falconeri (Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa).
Ironic isn’t it, that almost everyone (inc, Meloin, and for God’s sake, Oban) can see the benefits of remainng inside the EU… No matter what fabricated homilies to “Britishness” and “sovereignty” the Eurosceptics here might post
The old saying “Your mileage may vary” comes to mind.
That’s because those countries are largely reliant on EU funds. If they had to contribute the amounts the UK was doing they’d be much less favourable