A far-Right party has emerged as a key winner in the Italian elections marking a continuing trend of support for Right wing parties across Europe.
The Northern League, an anti immigration party, which has now become pivotal in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling coalition, has seen it’s support more than double in the last five years.
Led by firebrand Umberto Bossi, who once called for the Italian navy to shell boats carrying illegal immigrants towards the country, his victory mirrors those recently by far right parties in Hungary, Holland and France.
In the last regional elections held in 2005 the League secured just 5.7 per cent of the vote but in subsequent polls they have seen their popularity grow and this time it was 12.7 per cent.
James Walston, a political commentator at the American University of Rome, said: “The League has done very well and they will be flexing their muscles for the remaining three years of government.
“They will push for further devolution and immigration and race will also be on top of their agenda and these two are issues which are of concern to many Italians.
“The League is very well organised and they have succeeded in taking a lot of the working class vote from the Communists and Democratic Left and they also appear to have taken votes from Berlusconi’s own party.”
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Lots of talk about “far-right” parties in the article. Could it be, perhaps, that they are not “far-right”, at all but only appear so to those on the far left?
You probably hit the nail right on the head, John.
Yeah far right to me means death camps or for the far left gulags in any case if either defines you as an enemy of the state you’re toast !
Far right or left also means to me doing anything for power and embracing violence as a means to power including intimidation, murder or whatever it takes !
Far right to the left just means not liking the left’s koolaid or being politically incorrect and being accused of being ” hateful ” if one disagrees with the left.
We on the right may also get carried away when we accuse some of being communists or far left when some are merely ” socialists “.
We’ve seen this movie before. I am not impressed.
Bossi is a pretty crude character, but a lot of what he says (about Muslim migrants in Italy for example) is bang on. The problem is not Bossi and his supporters, for he is just the symptom of a deeper problem, namely the dominance of the centralising political left and the left’s agenda in European societies. (Berlusconi has done little to redress that problem.) Take away the hundreds of thousands of Muslims (North Africans and Arabs) from Italy, punish criminals, reduce taxes and relax employment rules, respect traditional local customs, and the Northern League would disappear.
So, create a Northern League nation and there will be no more need for a Northern League? Stands to reason …
Italy never faced the social pressures of Germany after WW2 so they never really dropped their integral nationalism. A Mussolini-based app for the iphone was one of the most popular in the nation until a copyright dispute led to it being removed. Several far right parties sponsor soccer teams and Italian fans have been censured by FIFA for giving nazi-esque salutes at games.
The Northern Leagues wants to “purify” the nation and are aware of the convoluted language required to get elected in EU-era Europe. They’re just the same as the BNP, Geet Wilders, Joerg Haider, etc.