‘Our worst predictions are coming true’: Italy’s left faces identity crisis as the right sweeps to power

A dynamic new leader of the Democratic party was supposed to stop the rot. But now all of Tuscany may turn blue

When the rightwing mayoral candidate in Lucca sought backing from the former leader of a neofascist movement, rivals on the left thought it would be enough to send a shiver down the spines of voters in the Tuscan city, one of the Italian left’s last strongholds.

They were wrong. After a decade in power, the centre-left Democratic party (PD) was ousted, part of a wave of defeats over the past 12 months that has seen the Italian left’s version of the “red wall” crumble.