Giorgia Meloni has suffered the first significant defeat of her three-and-a-half-year premiership.

The Italians have roundly rejected her plans to reform Italy’s sclerotic judicial system – even though those plans were in the election manifesto that persuaded so many of them to vote for her. It is unlikely now that any Italian government will attempt such a reform for another generation. Italy is condemned to remain a country where the motto in every court in the peninsula – ‘La legge è uguale per tutti’ (the law is equal for all) – is but a sick joke.

Defeat is a big blow not just to Meloni but to all who dreamed of change

Defeat is a big blow not just to Meloni but to all who dreamed of change

Still, Italy’s first female prime minister – the third longest surviving of Italy’s 69 governments since the fall of fascism – has no intention of resigning. Her right-wing Fratelli d’Italia party is as popular in the polls as when it won the 2022 election – a virtually unheard of state of affairs in a western democracy. Her coalition remains rock solid despite the odd bit of posturing by Matteo Salvini, leader of the Lega, whereas the opposition parties remain unable even to form a coalition. But undoubtedly Giorgia Meloni’s halo of invincibility shines far less brightly.

The ‘popolo’ voted by 54 per cent to 46 per cent against the Meloni reform in a referendum held on Sunday and Monday with a high-ish turnout of just under 60 per cent. Parliament had approved the reform but not by the required two thirds majority as it would have meant changing the constitution. So the matter had to go to a referendum.

It was bad luck that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, both very unpopular in Italy, launched their war on Iran during the referendum campaign. The war itself is unpopular enough but it also sent the price of petrol and diesel through the roof to above €2 a litre.

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Meloni has been the EU leader closest to the US President and inevitably Italians also used the referendum as a vote on her premiership. In recent days, she has tried to position herself, not very convincingly, as neither condemning nor supporting the war. The danger is that this comes across as weak fence-sitting rather than astute realpolitik.

Defeat is a big blow not just to Meloni but to all who dreamed of change.

Opponents of the reform........

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