Don't get in bed with the far right over this, no matter how much you want to 'win' . You have no idea how you are being used to try and achieve that goal, and what it might unleash. It would be a pyrrhic victory.
I sleep nightly in the far right's bed, and lump it due to a lack of choice. I have no vote here in Salvini + compliant 5* land, nor will I unless Brexit forces me to take on Italian citizenship.. Nor do I have one back home. Labour took my vote off me years ago. I drink coffee next to self declared fascists and the occasional communist (real ones, not "people who don't agree with me" ones) in the bar on a regular basis. I'd wager the extreme ends politics are more real to me than many, if not most, on the thread.
I just saw something very usual happen. A bridge collapsed. Tens of people, including little kids, dead, or with life changing injuries. Hundreds homeless. And the governments poltical reps were CHEERED, loud and long, as they arrived to pay respects in front of a sea of coffins. That might not sound significant to non Italian ears. But it was headline news in its own right for a reason.
We are far, far more used to seeing them whistled at during the latest sea of coffins and mass newly homeless event. Even though that particular cohort where not in power when "the mistakes were made".
Once they actually get in on a wave of popular backlash, they can say things that people want to hear. And their popularity increase.
The reason why we have the gov. we do, with its growing popularity so far, is because the centrist parties saw no reason to hear the low level roar of the electorate as they pushed through with policies they liked, despite the known objections from the people. And there has been the mother of all back lashes. Which, I don't think has finished yet.
I may need somewhere I can legally escape to with my family ten years from now if centrists don't start offering a viable alternative and Lega really does manage to get the country by the throat. So it's in my interests if Britain's centrists (possibly I have a different definition of centrist to most Britons, I include both Lab & Con in that) wake up and change direction on obviously unpopular policies .. yesterday. Because if they don't Zombie UKIP might not stay Zombie for long.
The result we got was not supposed to happen. Nobody was more surprised than Berlusconi when his party got eclipsed by their pet pit bull. If the conservatives are starting to come around to noticing that the electorate can and does rebel from time to time. Good.
Cos better the waggled bogeyman of Zombie UKIP, than the very much alive, kicking and vote munching phoenix that rises from the ashes.
In retrospect I wish large numbers of Italians in the centrist left/right spectrum had lied through their teeth to pollsters a year or two ago and claimed to be voting Lega the next time they got a vote. Or set up a fairly cynical "postcard to local candidate" campaign, saying they were switching to Lega if their preferred party didn't change tack on certain policies. That might have shifted our more centrist left/right just enough to step back from a cliff edge we could all end going over.
If the Cons have got the wind up them, good. I don't hold out much hope for Labour. The people currently in charge of it appear to be trying to assassinate the only party I ever voted for. There are enough examples now of what unexpected results can happen if you create a political atmosphere where large chunks of the electorate feel steamrollered. A pull back now (even a self interested one motivated by vote catching, or warding off a Zombie UKIP revival rather than principle) has to be better than the alternative.
Italian politics are notoriously hard to predict longer term. But I won't be surprised if Lega+5* consolidate and entwine more and more. To the point where they become unbeatable. Looking back, it wasn't inevitable. But the political over confidence of the centrists to essentially ignore rather a lot of the electorate made all our beds. And I am not having the most comfortable nights' sleep contemplating where this will end up. It's not like Italy doesn't have a track record in this regard.
I'd kill to go back two/three years and have a large chunk of voters cynically waggle a then much less powerful Salvini at the centre left/right. Because if that had happened, maybe we wouldn't have had so many people hold their tongue in public, and actually bloody vote for him once inside the private ballot box here up north, after giving up on the centre ever listening to them.
I know a lot of people who switched vote. As in known them personally for about a decade and a half. They aren't horrible people. They aren't stupid. Many are white collar professionals. They aren't even racist, and some of them had always leaned left. They never voted that way before. But they felt, and were, unheard. When their back was to the wall they kicked back. And we all risk some longer term deep bruises as a result. Most of them were surprised that Lega & 5* cleaned up enough to forma gov. They were making their protest vote privately, to make a small point, and didn't know how many other people were doing the same.
I don't understand enough about British politics now (there's only so much a lay person can glean via the media, with no feet on the ground). If Zombie UKIP is a non starter to shunt at least the Cons on self ID, fair enough. That's why I asked Red rather than make a firm proposal. But I hope to god you find a way back from this.
Not entirely just for your sakes. I'm selfish. I need a bolt hole back home if it all goes Horribly Wrong Again over here. And if my husband, who comes from two families with a long history of actively supporting fascism, has decided "ok for the moment, but very watchful waiting with a view to reacting early if needs be" is the order of the day, I'm inclined to take his word that we need to factor in this eventually slipping beyond the comfort zone of the "feeling unheard" people who originally made a protest vote.