Make no mistake – right-wing populism is making a resurgence in Europe, as the Italian elections show

'Nonno' has fathered some very unpleasant political offspring

Lega far right party leader Matteo Salvini could join the government (AFP/Getty)

Granddad – Nonno – is back, then. If that was the end of Italy’s political problems, the resurrection of Silvio Berlusconi might be thought manageable. After all, Italy has lived through his rule before, and, in fact, previous convictions (the criminal rather than political variety) mean that he cannot become prime minister for at least a year. At 81 years of age, even Berlusconi cannot look forward to decades of his authoritarianism being stamped on Italy.

The bad news is that Nonno is not alone. His spiritual grandchildren, the leaders of the two other main anti-EU populist right parties, have also made substantial gains in the Italian elections. Some combination of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the Five Star Movement led by Luigi di Maio and the Lega, a rebranded Northern League, headed by Matteo Salvini, will form the next government and provide a prime minister.

Bad news for Italy, and bad news for Europe too. Italians are understandably frustrated with the European Union’s failure to provide support for Italy during the migrant crisis, which has fuelled an unprecedented and particularly virulent form of Euroscepticism in this founding member of the European Union, one previously content to dissolve itself into an EU superstate. Hence the triumph of three parties that, like the Brexit movement in Britain, have shamelessly tapped into the well of economic frustrations and bewilderment at “free movement” of peoples, and blamed Eurocrats for their woes.

In Italy, no less than in Cornwall, the West Midlands and Sunderland, or West Virginia and Michigan for that matter, too many voters feel left behind, and are receptive to politicians offering them easy solutions to complex problems, promising, in effect, a better yesterday. Unlike in Britain, the Italian Eurosceptics have no wish to turn their backs on the EU’s economic advantages; but, perhaps worse, they will make constant trouble from the inside.

For all the rhetoric about solidarity, and indeed despite the shelter for a million or more refugees offered by Germany and Sweden, the southern frontline states of Italy, Malta and Greece bore too much of the burden of trying to cope with the influx, and of patrolling the Mediterranean. It was not the European Union’s finest hour, and a political price has been paid in Italy.

There are underlying issues too, which heighten resentment against migrants of all kinds. The economy, despite a recent spurt, remains sluggish, and national income is lower than it was before the financial crisis. Unemployment is at 11 per cent nationally, and much higher in some of the older post-industrial districts. Globalisation has not always served the Italian working class well. Italy’s banks remain famously weak, and the strains of remaining in the eurozone will never abate.

It is a challenging agenda for any government, and one that the posturing Italian New Right is less equipped to deal with than any of its moderate predecessors. Even if the tripartite coalition that will probably eventually emerge had a secure majority in parliament, which it will not, it has no answers to Italy’s deep-seated economic and financial malaise. Blaming others is easy; finding answers is the tricky bit, as Italy is about to discover. Again.

Following the victory of Emmanuel Macron in the French presidential elections last year; the re-election of Angela Merkel as Chancellor of Germany; and the defeat, or at least containment, of far right elements in contests in Austria and the Netherlands, there was an easy assumption that the tide had turned against populist, anti-immigrant, anti-EU forces. In fact, in most EU member states, the far right is enjoying levels of popularity that would have been thought unthinkable a few years ago.

In Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary rightist authoritarian parties take delight in defying Brussels over migration, and they are taken for granted as natural parties of government. The more the French, Germans and Brussels chide them, the more popular Mateusz Morawiecki , Andrej Babis, and Viktor Orban become.

The notion that a group such as Alternative für Deutschland, with its dog-whistle slogans and neo-Nazi features, could almost overtake Germany’s social democrats is just one of the many astonishing and dangerous developments to engulf the European political establishment in recent years. In Spain and Belgium, the dissent and collapse in social solidarity has erupted in separatism, threatening the very existence of the state.

Across the continent, in almost every country, and seemingly irrespective of tradition or electoral system, party systems are fragmenting and new populist parties (right, left, separatist and centrist) are intervening to disrupt old orders. All of this has been going on for some years, yet we should not become so inured to the phenomenon that it loses its capacity to shock.

Europe’s mainstream liberal parties, then, the shrinking establishment, have not been restored to their past dominance in France, Germany and elsewhere, but merely enjoyed some lucky escapes. The lesson of Italy, and the evergreen career of Silvio Berlusconi, albeit more mahogany in skin tone than anything else, is testament to the persistence of the threat posed by the far right, and that they only need to get lucky once. Nonno has fathered some very unpleasant political offspring.