The Lega’s compass has lost its north

A ghost is haunting Pontida: it is the spectre of the North. Absent from the imagery, vanished from the discourse, excluded from the strategies. Even Massimiliano Romeo, considered one of the rebel leaders, mentioned federalism only belatedly and in passing: his speech concluded with ‘long live the League, long live the Lombard League’ – no mention of the Northern League, no mention of an independent Padania.

The stars had provided immense emotional potential to draw upon: 85 years since the birth of Umberto Bossi (19 September 1941) and six months since his death (19 March 2026); 25 years since the death of the ideologue of federalism, Gianfranco Miglio (10 August 2001); 80 years since the birth of Gilberto Oneto, the inventor of Padania (born in 1946 and died in 2015); and above all, thirty years since the declaration of independence of Padania (15 September 1996), which few speakers mentioned and, in some cases, only with a touch of embarrassment. Minister Roberto Calderoli, who instead honoured its memory alongside a moving tribute to the Senatùr, remarked bitterly: “There’s no point in shouting out Bossi’s name: yesterday, there were only four of us there to plant an olive tree in his memory.” Yet even he, like everyone else, like the northern faction, like Matteo Salvini himself, called for unity. Of course, defusing internal conflict is one of the basic rules of any community. But can there be unity in a movement terrified by plummeting poll ratings? This is not the first time this has happened in the history of the Carroccio: in 2001 it failed to reach 4 per cent, and when Matteo Salvini took the reins in 2013 the situation was just as dire. The current secretary managed to breathe new life into the party and lead it to a record-breaking 34.3 per cent in the 2019 European elections. Except that this result was no revival: it was, if anything, a pact with the devil. By skilfully anticipating the new political landscape, Salvini moved towards what would become the populist right. To do so, he had to make two fundamental choices: to abandon the party’s autonomist identity and to pursue the goal of territorial expansion to the point of making the Lega not only a national party but one founded on a nationalist narrative. He thus set in motion the process of metamorphosis, the upheavals of which are now becoming apparent.

Initially, neither the purpose of the move nor its outcome was clear (perhaps not even to Salvini himself). After all, the battles he took up were nothing new: historically, the League had often taken a stand against irregular immigration, against the bureaucratic excesses of the European Union and in favour of security. Nor was the attempt to win votes south of the ‘Gothic Line’ unprecedented: in the 1990s, Bossi had embarked on the ‘Northern League – Federal Italy’ venture, through which he sought to win over southern voters to the cause of autonomy (without success and without conviction, it must be said). Observers were not surprised by what appeared to be a radicalisation of tone, linked in part to tactical choices. The real shift did not lie in what the League’s propaganda said; it lay in what it had stopped saying. For Bossi, these issues were instrumental to the broader objective of federalism. His view was that, by giving more power to the regions and their representatives, mayors and regional presidents would have the tools to resolve the problems that Rome was unwilling or unable to tackle. In this way, these campaigns helped to strengthen the sense of belonging to a shared community and were entirely consistent with the League’s core message, which appealed simultaneously to the hearts, gut feelings and wallets of the voters.

The transformation from the Northern League to the Salvini League has seen the issue of self-government disappear: consequently, immigration, Europe and security have ceased to be subsidiary to a broader objective and have become ends in themselves. The slogan that stood out yesterday from the stage at Pontida (painted a deep red, with no trace of Padania’s green) was ‘no foreigners allowed’. It may be a coincidence, but what a coincidence it is, that the words on which the League bases its message are taken from a patriotic song in which the ‘foreigner’ was that very Austro-Hungarian Empire for which many in Lombardy and Veneto still harbour nostalgia.

This shift in values was followed by an equally devastating shake-up of the leadership. Like Salvini, Bossi was a patriarchal figure: he crushed promising careers and promoted the incompetent. But he adhered to an unshakeable principle: to reach the stars, one had to have started from the stables. This ensured the League had an effective link between the grassroots and the leadership, and between the regions and the capital. Under Salvini, a large proportion of the leadership has been drawn from cultural traditions far removed from regional autonomy: this applies to Alberto Bagnai and Claudio Borghi, the architects of the anti-euro shift; it applies to Armando Siri, who shaped the party’s proposals on taxation and, today, apparently, its Luddite stance on artificial intelligence; it applies to Claudio Durigon, the architect of the party’s expansion in the South; and, above all, it applies to Roberto Vannacci, recruited as a general and who ended up as a deserter.

By distancing itself from the North, the Lega has shifted to the right: it has changed its political profile and is now represented by different figures. Initially, this worked, and with electoral success, the ideological unease was offset by an abundance of positions. Then, however, someone more credible in that sphere emerged: on the one hand, Fratelli d’Italia (which now acts as a magnet for the moderate electorate even in the North) and, on the other, Futuro Nazionale (which was not founded in a Munich pub in the 1920s, as Riccardo Molinari stated with unquestionable rhetorical effectiveness, but in Via Bellerio in Milan in the 2020s). Bossi could appear on television and distance himself from ‘Roma-Polo’ and ‘Roma-Ulivo’, or align himself with one or the other, as he saw fit, because he framed every choice within the same logical framework. Thus, in 1995, the Lega had no problem being described as ‘an offshoot of the left’ because the alliance served the purpose of defending the North against Berlusconi’s ‘relational capitalism’. A few years later, it had no trouble establishing itself as a pillar of the centre-right in order to secure devolution (which was rejected in the 2006 constitutional referendum). Salvini has relinquished this political flexibility: he speaks like a right-wing leader and attracts the votes of right-wing voters. As Roberto D’Alimonte wrote, “the 4.1 per cent [in 2013] consisted of 90 per cent of voters from the North. The estimated 5.6 per cent today is made up of roughly half of voters from the North and the other half from voters in other regions”.

For this reason, attempts at internal agreements appear to be nothing more than political manoeuvring. Salvini has called an extraordinary congress in October where he aims to cement his leadership by a show of hands: ironically, the outcome could be determined by a process similar to the referendum on devolution, which passed in the North but was rejected due to votes against it from the Centre-South. But even if the secretary were to accept the rebels’ demands – a more collegial management style and a federal internal structure – it would not change much in terms of the movement’s political profile. What would happen, in fact, if it were to take a stance on an issue where the interests of Padania are at odds with those of the Centre and South? This is not a rhetorical question, because this very conflict – starting with tax revenues – lies at the very heart of the Lega phenomenon.

The answer is simple: one need only look at recent experience. For example, leaving the euro is difficult to reconcile with the needs of the northern economy, as business representatives have repeatedly argued. This has not prevented – and does not prevent – the Lega from campaigning against the single currency. Even when anti-European sentiment aligns with business demands – for example, regarding the Green Deal – this is a temporary alignment, not a genuine convergence. While the secretary’s most iconic battle is the Bridge over the Strait, the manufacturing sector is suffering from energy prices: on the eve of the Pontida rally, this was reiterated by Lombardy’s regional councillor Guido Guidesi in Il Sole 24 Ore and by Veneto’s regional councillor Massimo Bitonci in ItalyPost. If the Lega were truly the ‘trade union of the North’, this is what it would be addressing: instead, apart from its grandstanding on windfall profits, it is failing to play a role. Indeed: it does not want to play one. Over the last two parliamentary terms, the Carroccio has been part of the majority almost without interruption, supporting three different governments (Conte 1, Draghi, Meloni). In none of these did it appoint ministers or undersecretaries with significant responsibilities for energy, despite having competent people within its ranks (such as former MPs Gianni Fava and Paolo Arrigoni, who were inexplicably sidelined). Worse still: at Pontida, everything was discussed except the agreement between Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna on industrial policy – one of the most interesting political developments of the last thirty years from a northern perspective. After all, Durigon was crystal clear in his speech: citing security, a reduction in the retirement age and the extension of the flat tax, he said that “this will be the objective of the next election campaign; this is what we must focus on; the rest is just talk”. Federalism, evidently and inevitably, is also part of that ‘talk’.

During a meeting with party activists a few days ago, Lombardy’s governor Fontana was asked what he missed about the past: “The ruthlessness,” he replied. “Back then we were alone against everyone, but we struck fear into people’s hearts. Today, we don’t strike fear into anyone’s heart.” Raising the Northern Question was tantamount to challenging the fiscal imbalance between the most productive regions and the rest of the country. Now that it has abandoned the North, the Lega is just another Roman party.