‘the theft of democracy’. Jeremy corbyn’s slogan? No: matteo salvini’s | thearticle

The appeal was striking. The leader of the party urged his supporters to demonstrate on October 19: “We have to take to the streets to protest against this theft of democracy,” was the cry.

Jeremy Corbyn? Jo Swinson? Nicola Sturgeon? Andrew Adonis? Er, no.The theft of democracy in question is the old-fashioned trick of organising a parliamentary majority to stop an

ideologically driven takeover of power. The words are from Matteo Salvini, the leader of Lega, crying out in frustration that his attempt to force an early general election in which he would

emerge as Italy’s new Duce have been frustrated by parliamentary manoeuvres – the very art of democracy now being denounced by those in the UK cabinet. Salvini has been defeated by an

alliance of the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the Partido Democratica (PD) who have agreed to form a coalition government, as predicted in _TheArticle last week_. Just as in Britain, it

looked as if Salvini would get his dissolution and then, assuming his poll figures were accurate, emerge as the leader _maximo e unico _of Italy. The M5S were founded on a visceral loathing

of Matteo Renzi, the Blairite PD prime minister, and are hostile to Brussels and in favour of left populist ideas, like a Universal Basic Income, which would plunge Italy into an even deeper

budget crisis. Equally, PD bigwigs refused to enter into a coalition with Guiseppe Conte of M5S as prime minister. But, in the end, they sank their differences to stop Salvini. Might

British MPs learn a little Italian as they work out what to do with Boris Johnson? The other aspect of the new pro-EU, moderate left coalition government is it announces the end of the Steve

Bannon and Donald Trump dream of a Europe moving to a hard nationalist-populist right under politicians like Salvini, Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherland, Viktor Orban

in Hungary and parties like the AfD in Germany, Swedish Democrats, Danish Peoples Party and True Finns in Scandinavia. Comment editors in the quality press gave endless space to Professor

Matthew Goodwin, who is the main purveyor of the thesis of an imminent right-wing takeover of Europe. In 2015, he predicted that UKIP would win five UK seats in the Commons. Certainly there

were trends that supported his thesis, but Salvini is just the latest Bannonite to let down Trump’s Svengali. The European Parliament elections saw the far right populists pushed back, to be

replaced by new populist parties like the Greens or the far left. The jury is out on just how hard to the right Boris Johnson is prepared to go. We will discover over the next weeks whether

his Salviniesque tactic of suspending Parliament works, or whether it produces a backlash from ordinary British people, who find such behaviour as, well, something one might expect from

excitable Italian arm-wavers, but not really very British. Similarly, the cry from Corbynistas to descend into the streets, as Salvini wants his followers to do, is precisely what can help

Johnson and Cummings as they seek to present all opposition to no-deal Brexit as hysterical excessive leftism. Never have Italian and British politics marched so much in step.