Italian politics has become infected by the English disease
Antonio Masiello/Getty Images
It has been a staple of smug English political condescension over many years to insist that Britain has a stable, sensible political system compared with the erratic Italians, who have managed to have 61 governments since 1945 and now have to find a 62nd after the resignation of the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte.
Mr Conte sacrificed his seals of office and his career in order to block the hopes of the populist, right-wing anti-European nationalist, Boris Johnson – sorry, I mean Matteo Salvini – sliding into the Palazzo Chigi, the Downing Street of Rome.
Many Italians believe having Mr Salvini run the country would be one bowl of spaghetti from the return of Mussolini, just as many British politicians believe No Deal would be utterly dreadful for Britain. But whereas Mr Conte has done the noble thing and put aside personal ambition in the hope of preventing a Salvini premiership, British politicians are unwilling to move an iota from their fixed beliefs and tribal loyalties in order to stop No Deal.
Jeremy Corbyn certainly won’t budge on his insistence that he should be prime minister of any technical government that might emerge from a vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson’s government. And, so far, no Tory MP has said his or her dislike of No Deal is powerful enough to overcome their loathing of Mr Corbyn.
Mr Conte’s public-spirit has not reached Westminster. But the mutual-hate of tribal party politics in London may now be infecting Italy.
Matteo Salvini wanted a vote of confidence in the government, which is an alliance against nature of the hard right, anti-EU, Islamaphobe Lega and the Five Star Movement. The latter was founded by the comedian, Beppe Grillo, with the slogan “Vaffanculo” – roughly “Go F Yourself” – in condemnation of the Italian political elites.
The Five Stars are actually a green, pro-European party – the Italian equivalent of Guardian readers – committed to Universal Basic Income and opposed to Italy’s HS2 – an expensive rail link between Turin and Lyon.
The rich north Italian industrialists and financial sector oligarchs who bankroll Lega and Salvini, who is also embroiled in a scandal over his party taking money from the Kremlin, dislike the Five Stars populist leftism.
Salvini wanted his own government to lose a confidence vote, and thus pave the way to a new election which would see his Lega anti-immigrant party emerge on top.
Conte’s resignation means there is no government to vote confidence on, and his sacrifice has spiked Salvini’s plans, as the rightist’s furious demagogic speech in the Italian parliament showed.
Now it is up to the President of Italy to call in other parties and potential prime ministers to see if a new government can be formed. The obvious coalition is between the Five Stars and the Partido Democratica, which consists of left-over Italian Euro-communists, the remnants of Italian socialists, and even some moderate centrists who could not stomach Silvio Berlusconi, let alone Matteo Salvini.
But again the English disease may mess up the idea of a Five Star-PD coalition. The PD leader who lost power was Matteo Renzi who is as vehemently disliked by much of the political class in Italy as Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn are by their opponents in England.
Key Five Star grandissimi say they cannot sit in the same room as Renzi, let alone in the same government.
The latest Italian political crisis is about Europe, immigrants, personal ambition, politicians who loathe each other, and parties that will not compromise. Italy’s interesse nazionale is nowhere in sight. How very English.
