Fascism is back! At least, that’s what a lot of foreign commentators on Italy’s recent election profess to believe. A united rightist bloc, led by Giorgia Meloni and her party, the Fratelli d’Italia (“Brothers of Italy”, FdL) has secured a landslide result. 

Cue yet another round of breathless comparisons to interwar Europe and dire warnings about the future of democracy in Italy. But is any of it remotely fair?

It is unarguable that FdL has roots in Italy’s post-war far right. Meloni founded it in 2012 with other members of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), an explicitly Fascist outfit. Despite formally rejecting Fascism in 1995, both the MSI and the modern FdL sport the tricoloured flame commonly used by European far-right movements.

So far, so chilling. But there is more to life than aesthetics, and any rational assessment of the new government in Rome has to be based on its actual policies and rhetoric. On that basis, the somewhat patronising conjecture about a Fascist renaissance becomes harder to sustain.

For starters, it is clearly not the assessment of the Italian people themselves. Meloni and her supporters have not marched on Rome; she leads a coalition which includes Matteo Salvini’s Lega, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, and Maurizio Lupi’s Noi Moderati. Between them, they took over 40 per cent of the vote; a map of the results shows strong centre-right results the length and breadth of the country. 

(It’s actually worth noting here that, contra the fearmongering about a threat to Italian democracy, Meloni is actually Italy’s first democratically-elected prime minister in fourteen years; voters have until now been forced to content themselves with a succession of satraps imposed by Brussels.)

Even if you believe that more than four Italian voters in ten have plumped for Fascism — a claim which would require some justification — it is hard to see why the country’s left-leaning media would help to dress a far-right wolf in sheep’s clothing. Yet as others have pointed out, they stubbornly continue to designate FdL as centrodestra — “centre-right”.

In fact, they do this for the simple reason that the new government has not been returned on a far-right programme. Indeed, where Europe really is facing down the very worst of the pre-war world — Ukraine — Meloni’s government is in lock-step with the rest of Europe; it also affirms support for Italy’s NATO commitments.

Likewise, there is a strong emphasis on reducing Italy’s exposure to Russian control of oil and gas exports, with both renewables and nuclear on the table as part of a mooted diversification programme.

On Europe, it strikes a Eurosceptic tone

On Europe, it strikes a Eurosceptic tone, especially when it comes to renegotiating the terms of some of Italy’s agreements with the bloc, but in the context of “full adherence to the European integration process”, a stance which in this country would read as Europhile obeisance. On tax, there is a traditional centre-right emphasis on simplification and cutting the burden on workers and families, balanced by cuts in public spending.

Perhaps international commentators are het up about Meloni’s pledge of a tough stance on illegal immigration. But such a policy is hardly surprising. Italy is on the front line of Mediterranean crossings into Europe from an increasingly unstable Maghreb. 

Since 2015, 750,000 migrants have arrived illegally on Italy’s shores, and this number is increasing year on year. By August of this year 45,664 migrants had landed on Italian territory, an increase of 40 percent on the same period last year, and just under half that number had been brought ashore by the Italian navy or NGO boats. 

For all that though, the measures proposed by the new coalition — stricter border controls, blocking boat landings, and establishing EU-managed processing centres outside the bloc to evaluate asylum applications — don’t seem out of line with those pursued by northern European nations such as those noted Fascist holdouts, the United Kingdom and Denmark.

Likewise, Meloni’s tough rhetoric on “woke” issues might not be to liberals’ tastes, but it reflects growing concern in many countries about the dramatic ways, and reckless pace, with which progressives are trying to transform social norms. It also draws on Italy’s Catholic heritage: Meloni has cited both JRR Tolkien and GK Chesterton as influences, alongside other mainstream conservative thinkers such as the late Sir Roger Scruton.

So rest easy: the shadow of the fasces does not loom once again over Italy. But that doesn’t mean this hyperbole doesn’t have consequences. The public are getting wise to such nonsenses, and trust in traditional media is being corroded as a result. 

Moreover, if journalists keep trying to draw the bounds of acceptable political debate too narrowly, and denouncing any right-wing challenge to that as “fascist”, they’re going to find themselves out of language if ever an actual fascist movement comes along — and with a public much less inclined than in the past to take them at their word.