Britain is one of the few European democracies that does not regularly feature a coalition government, and a winner-take-all political system breeds a winner-take-all punditry. What some in Britain see as political chaos, on the continent is viewed merely as democracy in action. One can read too much into the presumed Italian election result: its prime ministers on average last for less than three years. Italy’s new, complex electoral system means that predictions of seat numbers in its parliament are unreliable. Italy also has a long and rich history of drama. Its people, after all, have survived the rise and fall of western civilisation. In recent decades, political instability and economic stagnation has been a feature of the Italian experience – not a symptom of a wider crisis. Yet this general election is not business as usual.

The elections for the parliament are notable in one important respect: anti-establishment parties look to have won comfortably more than half the vote, an uncomfortable milestone for protest politics in a western liberal democracy. The election was marked by a rising tide of anti-migrant feeling. Italian soil is often the first that migrants fleeing north Africa by boat land on. Over the years the arsenic of anti-immigration rhetoric has been dripped into the country’s political water supply. The new kingmakers are likely to be the populist Five Star Movement, whose weirdness is personified by its commitment to repeal a law that makes it illegal for parents to not vaccinate their children, and the hard-right, anti-migrant Eurosceptic Lega Nord.

Europe has proved more resistant to the current strain of populism than many thought possible. The processes of forming governments, slower and more consensual than the UK system, have helped in this regard. In Germany the xenophobic Alternative für Deutschland could not take advantage of the ebb and flow of five months of talks to form the government.

Modern European populisms exhibit both generic and specific features. By mixing far-right cultural stances with more traditional left platforms, rightwing nationalists have attempted to draw votes from mainstream parties, especially social democratic ones. This explains to some extent the collapse in support for centre-left parties. It is also the case that, since the financial crisis, European states have seen inequality widen and social exclusion rise. Last week Europe’s statistical agency warned that nearly half of unemployed working-age people in the EU were at risk of poverty even after welfare payments. In Italy many young people, a third of whom are unemployed, were giving up on politics entirely.

It is easy for Europe’s populists to blame policy responses taken by Brussels. Populists are able to promise the earth while not dealing with the problems on it. Mainstream parties do not have this luxury. They must have credible ideas to reform European institutions so they are more responsive to citizens’ needs and sensitive to fiscal risk-sharing between northern surplus economies and peripheral deficit economies. There are welcome signs that France and Germany will work together to make this happen. Crucially, centre-left parties need policies focused on well-paid, stable employment and decent public services as well as the global challenges of migration. They must resist siren calls to recast rightwing policies as their own. When centre-left parties abandon a progressive agenda, they end up resembling the conservatives they are meant to compete with. Progressives in Europe should not fence themselves into spaces they cannot get out of and let nefarious populists occupy their territory.