Beppe Grillo attacks his own Five Star Movement: 'It was born to change politics, politics changed it'

Beppe Grillo, the comedian-turned-politician who co-founded Italy's Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) and served as its Garante until a traumatic rupture with the current leadership, published a lengthy post on his blog on 29 July 2026. The text, titled 'si sono montati la testa senza leggere le istruzioni' ('they got carried away without reading the instructions'), condemns a movement that, in his view, traded its original mission for internal careerism.

The core accusation

In the post, Grillo declares that the M5S 'has lost its identity and, above all, that “diversity” that made it unique.' He returns repeatedly to a founding paradox: 'It was born to change politics, but then politics changed the Movement. It was supposed to listen to citizens and instead started listening to polls. It was supposed to take care of the future and ended up taking care of seats.' The language carries the bitterness of a founder who sees the creature he brought to life now marching in the opposite direction.

Observing the anthropological transformation of its protagonists is of little use; it's the same old movie, the new becoming old, the revolutionaries discovering the palaces and intentions that pave the road to hell, complete with a toll.

Promises turned into slogans

Grillo recalls the policy platform that once defined the movement: citizens' income, a two-term limit, salary givebacks by elected officials, direct democracy, and an ecological transition. 'We had tried to give some answers: redistribute income, change the ruling class, involve citizens in decisions and plan the future instead of administering the next election,' he writes. Then the accusation becomes direct: over time, those proposals 'became slogans to be pronounced at conferences and forgotten after the buffet.' The movement, according to Grillo, 'started to take care of itself' rather than the questions that gave it life.

The questions have remained, the answers have disappeared.

A warning about democracy itself

The blog post widens the lens beyond Italy, diagnosing a deeper crisis of the Western model. Grillo writes that democracies stop being credible when they stop answering citizens, and he warns that fear will 'hand them over to authoritarian models.' He argues that the unease around immigration is often exploited rather than fixed, and that a credible political programme must restart 'from listening', to questions about security, health, fairness, participation, and identity.

When democracy stops responding, someone comes along who promises to take its place, sometimes wearing a uniform, other times controlling an algorithm.

Artificial intelligence and the future of work

A substantial portion of the text is devoted to the impact of automation. Grillo asks who will receive the wealth produced by robots and artificial intelligence, pointing out that even some protagonists of the tech revolution now talk about universal income. He proposes that those who profit from automation should start funding it, closing with the blunt sentence: 'You cannot privatise the future and distribute despair.' The post ends where it began: with a call for someone to respond to the questions still waiting outside the palaces.

Immediate political reaction

The attack, aimed unmistakably at the leadership of Giuseppe Conte, drew a prompt reply from the M5S president. Italian media reported that Conte fired back by recalling earlier comments from Grillo, noting that the former guarantor had once described Mario Draghi as 'Grillino.' The exchange reopens the fracture between the founder and the party he no longer controls, and it signals that the debate over the movement's identity is far from settled.