Italians struck another blow to the EU establishment

Here I was thinking the populist revolt was over. After all, the neoliberal elites said it was. They pronounce populism dead every six months or so – seemingly convinced that one election result or external event has finally finished it off for good. Covid was supposed to kill populism, by reminding the supposedly ignorant oiks of the importance of experts. Then Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was supposed to kill populism, by reminding ‘nativist’ voters of the importance of international cooperation and the folly of authoritarian strongmen – something they are supposedly enamoured of. And yet those pesky voters just keep on electing the ‘wrong’ governments. If the triumph of the Sweden Democrats in supposedly sensible Sweden earlier this month wasn’t symbolic enough, Italy has just made the right-wing, anti-immigration Brothers of Italy the largest party, paving the way for what the media breathlessly call the ‘most right-wing government since Mussolini’. …

But her triumph certainly shows that populist voters, desperate to land a blow against Brussels and its quislings in Rome, haven’t gone anywhere. Meanwhile, the response from Brussels shows that the EU, having beaten the populist government of 2018 into submission, is becoming even more intolerant of dissent. Giorgia Meloni poses no threat to Italian democracy, but the EU certainly does. So long as Brussels denies sovereignty to the people of Europe, the people of Europe will continue to defy it. The populist revolt isn’t dead yet. And that’s a good thing, too.