{"id":2334,"date":"2024-06-12T10:44:23","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T09:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/?p=2334"},"modified":"2024-07-16T19:51:30","modified_gmt":"2024-07-16T18:51:30","slug":"eu-elections-how-italys-far-right-leader-giorgia-meloni-framed-her-politics-throughout-the-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/2024\/06\/12\/eu-elections-how-italys-far-right-leader-giorgia-meloni-framed-her-politics-throughout-the-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"EU elections: how Italy\u2019s far-right leader Giorgia Meloni framed her politics throughout the campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr George Newth<\/span><\/a> is a Lecturer in Politics and member of Reactionary Politics Research Network, University of Bath. This article was originally published by The Conversation<\/a> on 10 June 2024.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Brothers of Italy, a far-right party with neo-fascist roots, has won over 28% of Italy\u2019s vote<\/a> in the European parliamentary elections. The party is expected to get 24 seats in parliament, quadrupling what it took in 2019. These results in Italy reflect broader gains for far-right parties<\/a> in several EU member states.<\/p>\n

The party has been led by Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni since 2014. She now finds herself in the role of \u201ckingmaker\u201d<\/a>, holding the balance of power between the centre-right and far-right groupings in European parliament.<\/p>\n

Elections to the European Parliament are of comparatively less importance<\/a> than national elections. They are characterised by low voter turnout<\/a>, so the results should not be viewed as a widespread popular endorsement of Meloni\u2019s politics.<\/p>\n

However, an increased far-right presence in European parliament could have a severe impact<\/a> on the EU\u2019s policy agenda. Not only this, the discourse in these campaigns also plays a key role in helping shift the range of policies<\/a> that voters will find acceptable towards the far right.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The EU has long been a useful ideological resource<\/a> for far-right parties, allowing them to reframe<\/a> their exclusionary politics as more acceptable and in defence of Europe. Meloni\u2019s pre-election social media campaign proved no exception.<\/p>\n

In the days and weeks leading up to the polls, her party\u2019s social media posts were underpinned by two key messages: \u201cscrivi Giorgia\u201d<\/a> (write Giorgia) and \u201cL\u2019Italia cambia l\u2019Europa\u201d<\/a> (\u201cItaly changes Europe\u201d).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
https:\/\/x.com\/FratellidItalia\/status\/1782039735294148832<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first takes its cue from Meloni\u2019s instruction to voters<\/a> at the official launch of her campaign in April to \u201cjust write Giorgia\u201d on their ballot. She stated that, despite being prime minister, she will \u201calways be one of the people\u201d. This attempt to personalise politics and merge party and nation-state was intended to endow her far-right ideas with the veneer of popular legitimacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The second was the party slogan of Brothers of Italy for the European elections. It encapsulates, or so the party argues<\/a>, a \u201cpragmatic and non-ideological vision\u201d. This specious claim, however, was immediately betrayed by the party\u2019s pledge to \u201cdefend [Europe\u2019s] identity from every cultural subjugation that sees Europe renounce its history to adopt that of others\u201d.<\/p>\n

This thinly-veiled Islamophobic and racist statement hints at the so-called \u201cgreat replacement\u201d<\/a>, a racist conspiracy theory that white European populations are being deliberately replaced by non-white migrants. It is a theory that has been endorsed<\/a> by Italy\u2019s minister of agriculture (and Meloni\u2019s brother-in-law), Francesco Lollobrigida.<\/p>\n

Meloni\u2019s calculated ambivalence<\/h2>\n

\u201cJust write Giorgia\u201d and \u201cItaly Changes Europe\u201d are deliberately vague slogans<\/a>. They convey a double message that extends the limits of what kind of political rhetoric is acceptable. This is a well-worn trope of the far right that enables the mainstreaming<\/a>of reactionary politics.<\/p>\n

Meloni gained prominence at a 2019 rally where she dog-whistled towards anti-gender, anti-LGBTQ+, and racist or Islamophobic politics. At the rally, she declared<\/a>: \u201cI am a Giorgia, I am a mother, I am Christian, and you cannot take that away from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a similar way, the seemingly innocuous messages of \u201cjust write Giorgia\u201d and \u201cItaly changes Europe\u201d serve as a cover for pledges to repatriate migrants<\/a> and stop boat landings<\/a>. These pledges, which were central to Meloni\u2019s campaign<\/a>, sustain the status quo of racialised borders<\/a> while endorsing the great replacement conspiracy.<\/p>\n

Further accompanying these slogans are pro-natalist<\/a> and anti-surrogacy<\/a> politics, which depict gender-normative models as the \u201ctraditional\u201d European family. The Meloni government has tightened norms against same-sex couples by demanding<\/a> local councils only list biological parents on birth certificates. It has also passed legislation<\/a> that criminalises surrogacy abroad. These measures disproportionately affect LGBTQ+ families.<\/p>\n

At the same time, it should not be forgotten that Meloni maintains<\/a> a \u201ctacit connection with the fascist regime\u201d via nods towards Italy\u2019s fascist past<\/a> and her continued use of the tricolour flame<\/a>. This was the logo used by her neo-fascist predecessors, the Italian Social Movement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meloni\u2019s shifting of her extreme rhetoric to the European level gives the lie to the popular narrative that there are two sides of Giorgia Meloni<\/a>: one that uses a more radical tone in domestic politics and another that adopts a more moderate tone abroad.<\/p>\n

Yet, despite the far-right dog-whistling of her social media campaign, Meloni has been courted not only by French far-right leader Marine Le Pen but also the current EU Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen.<\/p>\n

They are both attempting to woo her into supporting their respective Identity and Democracy<\/a> and centre-right European People\u2019s Party<\/a> parliamentary groupings. Le Pen\u2019s reconfiguration of the far-right<\/a> in European Parliament needs Meloni\u2019s support. Meanwhile, von der Leyen is relying on the backing of the Italian prime minister in her bid for re-election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Attacks on \u201cBrussels bureaucrats\u201d have often been a key feature in far-right messaging leading up to European parliamentary elections. But they were largely absent from Meloni\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, this reflects how Meloni has been willing<\/a> to toe the EU line and work with von der Leyen on several issues. But, on the other, it shows how the lines between the mainstream and far-right have become increasingly blurred<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meloni\u2019s far-right views, which she has depicted as \u201cnon-ideological pragmatism\u201d or \u201ccentre-right conservatism\u201d<\/a>, are now being parroted<\/a> by centrist political commentators. And von der Leyen, as a representative of the liberal mainstream, has promoted policies on migration that imitate<\/a> and draw praise from<\/a> the far right.<\/p>\n

Meloni\u2019s gains in these elections may not pose an immediate threat to the EU establishment. But this is scant consolation to those at the sharp end of her politics, which are fast being accommodated and mainstreamed by many in Brussels.<\/p>\n

Whether Meloni is more receptive to overtures of Le Pen or von der Leyen, therefore, barely seems relevant when her unacceptable politics continue to be widely accepted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the IPR, nor of the University of Bath.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr George Newth is a Lecturer in Politics and member of Reactionary Politics Research Network, University of Bath. This article was originally published by The Conversation on 10 June 2024.   Brothers of Italy, a far-right party with neo-fascist roots,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1742,"featured_media":2337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[107,108,110,115,133,123,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brexit","category-culture-and-policy","category-democracy-and-voter-preference","category-european-politics","category-global-politics","category-political-ideologies","category-racism-and-the-far-right"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/115\/2024\/06\/F56D44E1-7987-4296-84F9-2A8E3C365448.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1742"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}