This transformed centre-left is impossible to ‘moderate’

Among the many peculiarities of Italian politics, there is one that is particularly noteworthy: if you remain steadfast in your ideological and political convictions about what the country really needs to thrive, within a few years you risk finding yourself shifting from one end of the political spectrum to the other.

But not because you have – genuinely or otherwise – changed your mind: simply because it is the positions of the political parties that determine the length of the left-centre-right spectrum that have shifted.

It’s as if you were standing in one part of the room, near the north wall. At some point, you realise you’re actually just a few steps away from the south wall. But not because you’ve taken any steps in that direction: simply because it’s the floor beneath your feet that has moved.

In 1996, the centre-left’s election manifesto called for a cut in public spending equivalent to three percentage points of GDP, the privatisation of local public service companies, the aggressive liberalisation of economic sectors, the promotion of the market and competition, a reduction in the highest rate of personal income tax (and even an increase in the lowest rate!), the strengthening of the Prime Minister’s role, the reduction of the scope of public intervention, and the adaptation of European defence capabilities to enforce peace in conflict zones.

So, if you were convinced of the need for these policies, you were centre-left.

If you are convinced of that today, you are as far removed from the centre-left as you could possibly be.

But there’s no need to go back thirty years. Ten years ago, the Democratic Party introduced the Jobs Act, abolished Article 18 of the Workers’ Statute, passed the first competition law, reduced IRAP and IRES rates for businesses, attempted to introduce meritocracy and performance appraisal in schools, and engaged in a tough political and cultural battle against the most conservative sectors of the judiciary, the civil service and the trade unions.

All of which today brand you as a dangerous reactionary, even though the main architect of those policies has been queuing up for two years to be admitted to the mainstream. But that is another, very sad, matter.

Not even the centre-right is immune to this strange phenomenon. The Lega, which twenty years ago carried out the bold reform known as the ‘Maroni step’ to raise the state pension age, bears the same name and symbol as the Lega which, a few years later, made us spend tens of billions of euros to lower it – the state pension age. And the Forza Italia of the liberal revolution led by Antonio Martino and Giuliano Urbani is the same as that of Gasparri, who instead fights like a lion to defend the privileges of taxi drivers and beach resort operators. It must be said, however, that both these parties are currently engaged in a political re-evaluation – which appears to be sufficiently profound – aimed at reversing course once again. Only time will tell whether this is merely a power struggle amongst the ruling classes or a genuine shift in the political and cultural DNA of the political landscape.

In the centre-left, however, this genetic mutation continues unabated, and with alarmingly pronounced characteristics.

Precisely for this reason – because this is the political camp where the ‘shifting of the ground’ is most pronounced and irreversible, and therefore most likely to have far-reaching consequences across the political spectrum – it also appears to be the one on which it is most useful to focus the analysis.

The founder of the Democratic Party and its first secretary – Walter Veltroni – looked to the Kennedy brothers as political and cultural role models. The other day, young members of the Democratic Party publicly celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Fidel Castro, who was the sworn enemy of the Kennedy brothers.

Matteo Renzi, the longest-serving secretary of the Democratic Party, spoke at the Knesset as Prime Minister in defence of Israel; before him, left-wing leaders such as Piero Fassino were known for taking a strong stand in defence of the Jewish state. Today, the Democratic Party and the other parties of the Campo Largo coalition are honouring Francesca Albanese and have no qualms about marching in keffiyehs in demonstrations where people shout ‘Free Palestine from the river to the sea’.

In the 1990s, Massimo D’Alema – as secretary of the PDS – rejected French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin’s proposal to reduce working hours whilst maintaining the same pay, a proposal supported instead by Rifondazione Comunista and the Fiom. A few months ago, the Democratic Party tabled and supported in the Chamber of Deputies – again in full agreement with Avs and the M5S – a preposterous bill proposing exactly the same thing.

Not to mention the aforementioned complete U-turn on the key policies defining the centre-left’s political platform: there has been a shift from competitive tendering to the defence of in-house contracts, from cuts to business taxes to dreams of a new wealth tax; on reforms in crucial sectors (banking, education, the labour market, the justice system and public administration), the previous approach has been repudiated – dismissed as a mere ‘manufacturing error’ for which to apologise – and the exact opposite position has been adopted.

Finally, as ideas are always carried by people, to bring things full circle one need only look at the Democratic Party’s front-line leadership: these are people who, until just a few days before Elly Schlein’s victory in the primaries, were leading figures in the radical left-wing parties.

The transformation of the Italian centre-left coalition is therefore profound, unequivocal and clear-cut: both in its leadership, its political proposals, its symbols and its behaviour. What consequences does this have for the country’s political dynamics? At least two.

Firstly, with all due respect to the various Bettinis (and their protégés), Magis, Renzis, Ruffinis, Spadaforas and so on, any attempt to ‘moderate’ the drift described above is utterly futile. Not only because of the enormous disparity in scale (the PD, M5S and AVS account for over 40 per cent, whilst all the other major players combined might reach 2 per cent), but also because the political and cultural landscape imposed by the ‘four tenors’ (Schlein, Conte, Fratoianni and Bonelli) is so starkly radical that it leaves no room for any kind of genuine compromise. What middle ground can be found between those who want a wealth tax and those who do not? Between those who want to send weapons to Ukraine and those who do not?

The second consequence is the one I mentioned at the start: those who have remained stuck in the ideas and programmes of the Ulivo coalition of 1996 or the PD of 2016 suddenly find themselves regarded as ‘right-wing’. Just like someone who, whilst standing perfectly still, has seen the floor slip away beneath their feet and now finds themselves near the south wall of the room, having started at the north wall.

Ultimately, the whole issue boils down to a fairly simple question.

Those who are convinced (and always have been) that, in Italy, promoting the market and competition does not mean cementing social positions but rather setting in motion the most powerful engine of social mobility; those who are convinced that the State should do fewer things but do them much better, and use the savings to slash taxes for those who work and produce; those who are convinced that the energy mix Italy will need over the next 50 years will consist of renewable energy and nuclear power; those who are convinced that a radical reform of the education system is needed to free it from the excessive conservative influence of certain trade unions; those who want a tax system that an 8-year-old child can understand; those who want a modern and meritocratic public administration; those who defend due process and certainty of punishment; those who believe that wages can only rise by promoting a steady increase in the system’s productivity; those who, on the world stage, defend Western values – as embodied by the United States and Israel (and not by their governments of the day) – without any ifs or buts…

… Those who are convinced of all this – and perhaps have always been so over the last thirty years – what label are they given today, in this enormous farce that Italian politics has become?