Salvini is a joke. The North says: “You’re finished, step down.” The regional governors are calling for a triumvirate

Rome. The League chews things up, just as it chews up criticism – it chews and spits them out. Salvini is as elastic as rubber and even erases the truth. Nothing he says in interviews is true. The Lombardy branch of the League has told him to ‘step aside’, to ‘go away’, that ‘your time is up’, and he replies that he had a frank exchange, a wonderful discussion. It is as if a convicted criminal were to tell you before the verdict: “I had a calm conversation with the judge about my recent past.” Do you know what the League is forced to do, to set the record straight, to recount Friday evening’s meeting – five dramatic hours in which all sorts of things happened? It sends samizdat to the newspapers: “Please report this,” and the phrases are passed on like the aedi of old.

The meeting that Salvini dismissed as a drinks reception in Milan, on Via Bellerio, on 7 August, ended with him promising another one “at the end of August”. Daniele Belotti, the voice of Pontida, suggested to him, “Step down”; the League member from Brescia, Giovanmaria Flocchini, explained to him: “Your time is up”; Attilio Fontana, the ‘hidalgo’, in his firm voice, continued: “I acknowledge what you’ve done as a minister, but the League isn’t just about numbers and major projects. The League is a dream; the League must be about struggle and governance. We weren’t born to blend into the centre-right.” What else can they say to him? Ah, the members from Brescia in Bergamo also told him that “the League is weak. Nobody’s joining anymore”, “that as long as you’re there, they won’t vote for us”, “you’ve lost credibility”. There were about forty participants, but it’s best not to name names because these days you end up in exile. Every single day, when Attilio Fontana realises that Federica Valenti (the Agi journalist who has covered the League for thirty years) has been transferred to the foreign desk, he’d like to change his passport too. Salvini’s speech lasted half an hour, and for another three and a half hours, in all the Ladin dialects, League members tried to explain their discontent to him. To no avail. Salvini is taking a leaf out of Schlein’s book. He took seven pages of notes. When they told him it was ‘over’, he would shrug and reply, ‘Let’s not exaggerate’. He takes it on the chin like the boxer Jack LaMotta. They kept saying: ‘Leave it to those who can actually deliver something today’. It was obvious they were referring to Zaia and Fedriga, the regional governors, but as usual, Salvini retorted: “I’ll take the League to ten per cent.”

Everyone knows what his plan is: a Renzi-style party, the ‘Leghetta’, a party of twenty mates from the pub. He wants to get to the elections and purge them on the night the candidate lists are drawn up; the first is Romeo, the group leader in the Senate. During the meeting, only Toccalini and Minister Locatelli gave him a bit of a hard time. For both of them, the problem is that they’re talking to the press – not that Salvini has slipped in that disaster of a man called Vannacci, someone who for two years rode the Lega’s coattails (databases, members consulted) and then jumped ship, spitting as he went. It was Fontana who told Salvini: “You can’t label those who criticise you as enemies.” If the situation were not so serious, it would be laughable. The solution Salvini aims to push through by the end of the month is, once again, collective leadership. He intends to resort to that well-worn tactic once more: pretending to grant greater powers to the regional governors, just as he did with that “territorial control room” he established – a complete sham. Remember the statute they concocted to save him? He chewed it up, tore it to shreds, and now that he’s digested it, he wants to bring it back. If it weren’t for Durigon, who’s fond of him and who came up with the ‘pre-Pontida’ – that rally on 8 and 9 September in Rome – the countdown would already have begun. The new development is that this time the regional governors have no intention of taking the fall. They’re saying: ‘Either he steps aside and appoints three figures to steer the ship, or we won’t put our necks on the line.’ For now, credit to Belotti, the soldier Flocchini, and the nobleman Fontana. Salvini, through his frequent visits to the south, has become as ‘southernal’ as in Verga’s novella. He increasingly resembles Mazzarò, who refused to part with his possessions. When they told him it was time to leave, he would strike at ducks and turkeys and shout: ‘My stuff, come with me!’ He thinks the League is still his ‘stuff’.