Brothers of Italy: understanding Giorgia Meloni’s political party

The Fratelli d’Italia (FdI), which Giorgia Meloni has led since 2014, is a party with neo-fascist roots. Although it has only existed in its current form since 2012, it is the direct political descendant of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), which was formed by members of Mussolini’s National Fascist Party after the War.

The MSI was the party of the nostalgici, those who looked back fondly on fascism. The FdI is headquartered at the same address in Rome where the MSI set up office in 1946; and its party symbol is the Italian tricolour flame, which is said to represent the flame that is always kept burning on Mussolini’s tomb in Predappio. The FdI itself has fielded candidates who are descendants of Mussolini (including his granddaughter Rachele Mussolini).

One of its founders, Ignazio La Russa, who now serves as speaker of the senate, is the son of a Mussolini associate who collects fascist memorabilia; the party’s councillors have been seen giving fascist salutes and praising Mussolini.

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Is the FdI still neo-fascist today?

Political scientists describe it as “post-fascist”, or far-right. Meloni joined the MSI’s youth wing as a teenager in the working-class district of Garbatella in Rome. She was then an avowed admirer of Mussolini. But as leader, she has worked hard to moderate the FdI’s image.

“Fascism has been consigned to history,” she said recently, arguing that her party today is a mainstream conservative one, like Britain’s Tories. Some see her as a populist in the mould of Viktor Orbán in Hungary or Marine Le Pen in France. But many argue that the FdI has most in common with Donald Trump’s wing of the Republican Party: it is anti-immigration, anti-abortion, and fiercely anti-“woke” ideology. Meloni summed up her political brand at a rally in 2019, when she declared: “I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian – and no one will take that away from me!” Her credo became so famous that it was remixed into a dance track.

How did Meloni gain power?

Through the collapse of yet another governing coalition. The former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi was made prime minister in February 2021, leading a technocratic unity government to guide Italy through the pandemic. But after almost 18 months he resigned, having lost the support of the populist Five Star Movement, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, and Matteo Salvini’s far- right League.

That led to a general election in September. The FdI benefited because, unlike its rivals on the Right, it had remained in opposition during the cost-of-living crisis. In 2018, it had won only 4% of the vote; this time it emerged as the largest party, with 26%. After weeks of coalition talks with right-wing parties, Meloni was sworn in last month as Italy’s first female prime minister, and its first far-right leader since Mussolini – exactly 100 years after the March on Rome.

What was the March on Rome?

It was an uncomfortable coincidence that Meloni’s swearing-in came precisely a century after the world’s first fascist takeover: the March on Rome, on 28-30 October 1922. After the First World War, Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party harnessed discontent with Italy’s meagre gains from the Treaty of Versailles, as well as fears of a socialist revolution, using a potent brew of nationalism, populism and violence – provided by his blackshirt militias.

On 24 October, Il Duce told a rally in Naples: “Our programme is simple. We want to govern Italy.” He told supporters that if the government did not resign, they must march on Rome. Thousands then marched (or took trains) to the capital, where King Victor Emmanuel III, the head of state, was faced with a choice: mobilise the army against them, risking civil war, or give in. In the event, he sided with the fascists, saluting to thousands of blackshirts as they filed past his balcony. Dozens of opposition politicians and journalists were killed in the aftermath.

Meloni and the FdI have, in the past, been ambiguous when discussing Mussolini. However, she used her maiden speech in parliament to denounce fascism: she described Mussolini’s racial laws of 1938, which led to thousands of Jewish people being deported during the Holocaust, as “the worst moment in Italian history”.

How right-wing are her policies?

The FdI is dubbed “far-right” because it is well to the right of mainstream European conservative politics. Nationalism and nativism are central to its message: its slogan is “God, Fatherland, Family”. Meloni has called for a blockade to stop migrant boats reaching Italy. The FdI opposes Italian citizenship being granted at birth to children born in Italy to foreign parents, and it wants to reduce access to benefits for foreigners. Its manifesto declares that it will promote the “traditional family”.

Meloni ran on a promise to boost Italy’s birth rate, which at 1.2 per woman is one of the Europe’s lowest, in part by offering financial support to mothers. She has said she won’t abolish the 1978 law that permits abortion, but she wants to drive down abortion rates. She also opposes “the LGBT lobby”: she is against gay marriage (which is not yet legal in Italy), and adoption by same-sex couples. In other areas, though, the FdI has moved noticeably towards more moderate positions.

How has the FdI moved to the centre?

In the past, the FdI and its predecessors were deeply Eurosceptic. But Meloni, recognising that there is strong support for the EU in Italy, now describes herself as pro-European. She has also committed herself to follow Draghi’s EU-approved economic reforms – perhaps not surprisingly, because they come with €200bn in EU funds for Italy’s post-Covid recovery. During the election campaign, she was also unequivocal in her support for Ukraine, and her commitment to Nato – unlike either Berlusconi or Salvini, who are both admirers of Vladimir Putin. And she has kept many of the technocrats appointed by Draghi in their roles.

So does the FdI’s victory represent business as usual?

In some respects; but it’s still a landmark in European politics. The far-right has been in power in Hungary and Poland for years. In France, Le Pen’s National Rally has long been the leading opposition force. But it’s the first time such a party has led a Western European nation. To some, Meloni’s ascent represents another disturbing step in the “normalisation” of far-right politics, a process which is visible from Eastern Europe to Spain to Sweden – where a party founded by neo-Nazis is now the country’s second largest.

How long will it last in power?

The FdI has built a strong ruling coalition, for the time being; by contrast, Italy’s parties of the Left and centre are bitterly divided. Yet Meloni is reliant on allies who may prove tricky to manage; during coalition talks, Berlusconi described her as “patronising, bossy, arrogant and offensive”; Salvini has also proved an unreliable partner in previous coalitions. The history of Italian politics hardly inspires confidence that this one will last: Meloni’s is the 70th government that Italy has had since the Second World War, an average of one every 13 months.