Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It has been a very bad year for the political establishment in Europe. Former Prime Minister, David Cameron, is gone as a result of the impact of the result of the referendum on Brexit. President Francois Hollande will be gone as a result of his unpopularity as he is unable to stand even for the primary of the Parti Socialiste in France. Now, Prime Minister Renzi, the fresh-faced figure who was supposed to moderate austerity on behalf of all of us in Europe, is also gone, having been humiliated in the Italian referendum, in which his proposal was defeated by a vote of almost 60% against.

The Irish Government and every other European government would be loth to put any question to a referendum at this time for fear that people would take the opportunity to reject the political establishment. In advance of the referendum, various media outlets informed us of what was at stake. For example, The Independent in Britain featured the headline, "Italy goes to the polls in vote that could destabilise Europe". Another headline read, "The most dangerous moment for Europe since Brexit", featuring the caption, "Everything will change". Following the result, the Taoiseach informed the House that the European Union could deal with the outcome of the Italian referendum.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade said he does not see any comparison between this and Brexit and that this was not about the EU or the euro, which is a deliberate understatement of what this is about. The Government is attempting to hide and gloss over the fact that two major crises are exposed by the tremendous result in Italy yesterday. First, the political crisis of the establishment of Europe has not gone away but is deepening and Europe does not have respect or support among large sections of the population across Europe and, second, the banking crisis has not gone away. It was shoved slightly under the carpet in terms of some of the responses a number of years ago to the eurozone crisis and there was a failure to deal with the fundamental problems in the banking sector that are linked to problems in the real economy, as seen in Italy.

There has been an attempt, generally, to paint opposition to the EU austerity project as populism of the right, xenophobia, etc. That is also happening in terms of the Italian referendum and the attempts to point to this being related to the right populists of the Northern League, racists and so on. Any analysis of the vote shows that is not the case. Those who were opposed include right populists but the dominant forces were the left of the democratic party, left-wing political parties, left-wing trade unionists, such as the CGIL, and young people. Some 81% of those aged 18 years to 35 years, the low-paid and people from the poorer south rejected the policies pursued by former Prime Minister Renzi, which were anti-worker, anti-popular policies such as the labour reform law, the counter-reform in education and the rejection of the centralisation of power attempting to ride on a wave of anti-political populism.

There is a lesson here for the political establishment in the European Union. It was summed up in an article in The Financial Timesby Wolfgang Münchau as the Marie Antoinette moment for Europe's elite. These people are unwilling to see the reality of what is happening and the extent of the disillusionment with Europe's political and economic system and respond with something that is akin to "let them eat cake", for which it will pay the price again and again. There is a significant left force building that can instead transform the Europe that we have and fight for a very different type of Europe, a socialist one that works in the interests of the minions.

See this speech in context