Grillo: the Movement has evaporated, I claim the right to extinction

"I absolutely do not want to make a mess or not. I claim as the creator of the movement, my right to the extinction of the movement. When I see this 5 Star flag, with the Wizard of Oz in front of it talking about direct democracy, I get a pit in my stomach. So, that's fine, we have to be civilised people. He can make his nice party, he can make his manifesto with his nice, nice, sincere face, with the words, Oz and his 22 mandates can get to 8 per cent', but 'I claim this right to extinction because it is no longer there, we all know it, the movement is no longer there, it has evaporated'. This was stated by Beppe Grillo in a video on his blog in the aftermath of M5s leader Giuseppe Conte's (the wizard of Oz in Grillo's post, ed.) decision to not renew his €300,000 contract for the Movement's communication, due to expire at the end of the year.

Words to which the M5s leader responded as follows: 'I respect everyone's opinions, but the news of the day is that we are completing the deliberative confrontation in an important sample of our community, then there will be a process of elaboration of ideas, towards a constituent assembly that will put the proposals to a vote'.

But Grillo's attacks on the Conte administration do not end here. They extend to the choice of candidates for the regional elections in Liguria and Emilia Romagna. 'If we want to be sober' and 'also intelligent, it is very clear that there is something that does not add up,' Grillo continues in the video. 'And also these elections that are taking place in Liguria and Emilia Romagna, but the candidates who support this left-wing progressive movement, but who voted for them? Was there a vote from below, would this be democracy from below? No, they were catapulted from above, put there, the usual games of old politics. So, that is not democracy from below, that is low democracy'.

All this is taking place exactly one month before the constituent assembly called to vote on significant changes to the statute and code of ethics: not only the possible change of name and symbol and the overcoming of the two-term limit strenuously defended by Grillo, but the figure of the guarantor itself (downsizing of the role or even 'abolition" in the name of internal democracy, given that the guarantor is the only office for life). With no more money and no more role, Grillo could nevertheless claim ownership of the name and symbol. Were it not that such ownership is claimed by Conte himself and also by Davide Casaleggio, Roberto's son ('the M5S symbol is the property of the Association founded by me and Luigi Di Maio'). In short, a matter for the courtrooms. But those who have spoken to him in recent days assure that Grillo has no intention of taking legal action. Much less to attempt a split in the name of the values of the origins.

But the redde rationem in the assembly at the end of November is a month away, and Grillo has accustomed us to many surprises in 15 years. In the meantime, he must take the blow dealt him by Conte: the net cut in funds, necessary to keep alive the famous blog from which everything was born fifteen years ago, means cutting off at the root the political agility of the one who is still (perhaps briefly) the guarantor of the movement.