This was OUR Brexit!’ Italians celebrate while Bannon hails ‘centre of world revolution’

Vincenzo Boccia, the 30th President of Confindustria, an Industrial employers’ group, said the election results in southern Italy “were a bit like our own Brexit”, with the small middle class voting “differently from expected”.

He said the vote was “a vote against traditional parties, it is not just a question of income”.

The Italian elections that were held on March 4 ended in stalemate, with an alliance of centre-right and far-right parties falling 49 seats short of a majority in the lower house of parliament.

The largest single party was the 5-Star Movement (M5S) led by Luigi Di Maio, which was 95 seats adrift and does not have enough seats to govern on its own.

Italians in the south of the country shook up politics after they took to the polls and gave the anti-elite M5S their backing.

In contrast, the wealthy northern part of the country threw its support behind right wing party – the League (Lega).

Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who lost out is now jostling for the defeated Democratic Party (PD) to help his centre-right bloc form a government, saying Italy had to avoid a swift return to the polls.

But, Matteo Salvini, the head of the League party said: “The Parliament must be presided by Lega and M5S, the winning parties.”

“I think that doing the opposite of what Italians chose last week would be madness, and there are two political forces that have won the elections”.

“I will do all that is humanly possible to respect the mandate that Italians have given us, which is to be president of the Council, but without alliances that contradict our program. This was the program chosen by Italians”.

Steve Bannon, US President Donald Trump’s former advisor has thrown his support behind Mr Salvini.

He told the Front National congress in France: “Italy is the heart of our revolution. I prefer Salvini.”

Mr Bannon said his dream is “seeing Lega and M5s together, different expressions of the same phenomenon”, which “exceeded, along with other minor groups, half of the voters”.

The former US advisor said he prefers the secretary of Lega “because he represents the North, or three quarters of the national GDP, while Mr Di Maio proposes a version of an economy with benefits for all, which will bankrupt the public funds in less than two years.”

Mr Bannon added: “The reality is that Di Maio looks to the left, wants to be like Obama and Macron and seeks for this the understanding with the Democratic Party, while Salvini is with the people, has a heart, and thinks only of fighting free trade and migrants”.

“If Salvini rules with M5S, he will be the driving force, if Salvini remains in opposition, he will have the merit of having defeated corrupt politicians such as Berlusconi, and if there is a national unity government, Salvini will impose goals linked to the middle class”.

In a snub to the UK, Mr Bannon said Italy was the “driving force of national-populism” because “you are more creative than the British, French and Germans.

“You are a nation that is used to making great changes” and “here we won because the leaders were not disqualified as it happened with Marine Le Pen in France”.

The split between the industrialised north and the deprived south has never been so stark and is likely to have profound implications for Italy and Europe for years to come.

The Mezzogiorno, or “noon” as the south is called in Italian, has lagged behind the rest of the country for decades, but the recent financial crisis has exacerbated the problem.

The south’s economy shrank 7.2 percent between 2001-2016, according to latest data, while Italy’s output grew by one percent over the same period and that of the European Union by 23.2 percent.

Unemployment in the south stands at almost 18 percent versus 6.6 percent in the north, with youth unemployment at 46.6 percent – more than double the level at the top of the country.

With 4.7 million Italians living in absolute poverty, the M5S has promised to introduce a monthly minimum income of up to 780 euros for the poor.