An Italian referendum on easing citizenship rules and strengthening labour protections has failed after hard-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni encouraged voters to boycott the vote.

As polls closed on Monday, it emerged that many citizens had heeded Meloni’s call as only 30 percent of the electorate cast their ballots over two days of voting , far short of the 50 percent plus one needed to make the result legally binding.

The outcome was a clear defeat for the centre-left opposition, which had proposed to halve the period of residence required to apply for Italian citizenship from 10 to five years and to reverse labour market liberalisations introduced a decade ago.

The prime minister said she was “absolutely against” the citizenship proposals, announcing she would turn up at the

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