ITALIANS living in Scotland have reacted to the election of a far-right government in Italy, with some vowing never to permanently return to the country.
It is expected that Giorgia Meloni, the leader of far-right party Brothers of Italy, will become the country’s first female prime minister and lead a coalition of parties to form the most right-wing government Italy has seen since the Second World War.
Meloni is anti-abortion and opposes migration into Italy from outside Europe. She has also voted against extending further rights to LGBT+ people, claiming that homosexuals are not discriminated against in Italy.
Luigi Gravili is a 25-year-old translator living in Glasgow. He said the results were “completely depressing”.
He told The National: “To be honest I feel like it has been a ticking time bomb. The far-right has been polling very well in Italy for years, now.
“We’ve always had politicians with those kinds of views but they’ve been extremists and in the minority.
“You would hear about some random politician saying really homophobic things, sometimes even in parliament or in TV interviews. But now the biggest party in Italy champions those views, a party with fascist roots.
“Italy is an anti-fascist country because of the history that we have so the fact that they got into power is really scary. I’m scared of what they could do with that kind of power.”
The predecessor party to Meloni’s Brothers of Italy was the National Alliance, which has its roots in the Italian Social Movement – a group established by veterans of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic.
Gravili moved from Puglia to Scotland when he was 18 years old. He said that while he has no plans to return to Italy, he’s worried about what Meloni’s victory could mean for Europe as a whole.
“This result sends a message to other far-right parties in Western Europe that these kind of views are popular,” he said.
“That these dangerous views can win in a supposedly liberal country is worrying and I’m scared of what this could mean in the future, not just for Italy but for other countries as well.
“So, think of Le Pen in France or Vox in Spain. I’m scared this could be the first of many.”
Benedetta is from Genoa and now lives in Glasgow. Like Luigi, she said the results were predictable but concerning.
“I feel sad, worried and angry that we’ve reached this point,” she told The National. “It’s depressing to think that people have really witnessed the same speeches and scandals I’ve been watching and still went ahead and voted for such a far-right candidate.
“At the same time, it’s depressing that the centre-left really did not offer any meaningful alternative”
She added that her family in Italy were equally dismayed with the results of the election, which saw Meloni’s party win around 26% of the vote.
“In the past few weeks when we’ve Skyped the elections always came up in conversation and the general feeling was that of impending yet unstoppable doom.
“We all see the nods to fascism and we’ve all heard Meloni speak to her voters, so it’s hard to feel positive about it right now.
“I guess the only hope is that this government will be short-lived, and we won’t enter a Berlusconi-like era that goes on for 20 years.”
Born and raised in Naples, student and part-time barista Giovanni Liuzzi said that Meloni “makes Liz Truss look like an angel”.
He said: “It is very confusing, personally, to see someone with such a young and friendly appearance like Meloni – she could probably be your friend’s cool mum – have such extreme right-wing views on LGBT+ people.
“She wants to change the constitution to make it illegal for same sex couples to adopt, which would be a disaster.” Liuzzi added that as a gay man he wouldn’t feel safe if he decided to return to Italy full-time.
“If Italy was not on my list of places where I see myself in the future, now it is totally off-limits and I bet many people feel this way.
“Why would I want to put myself in danger by going back? I feel so free here in Edinburgh.
“This city is such a friendly and accepting place and I consider myself incredibly lucky to live in such a forward-thinking country where left-wing politics are on the mainstream political agenda.”
Though Meloni’s position as the next prime minister is assured, Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, must nominate her before it becomes official. This isn’t expected to happen until late October.
