Infighting in the League: who questions Salvini's leadership

'Now we can finally start talking about our issues again'. The sigh of relief to which one Lombardy League member let himself go in recent days confirms that some balance is set to change in the party led by Matteo Salvini. And the watershed is marked by the affirmation at the head of the League in Lombardy of Massimiliano Romeo, whom many see as the representative of the internal criticism towards a strategy, in Salvini's imprint, less oriented towards northern issues than the northernist thrusts of the origins. All this while Salvini moves with the other forces of the majority to obtain a return to the Viminal.

'Deductions for those who hire in the South are understandable, but we ask the executive to pay more attention to where productivity is concentrated,' Romeo said in the Senate on Saturday 28 December before the final go-ahead for the manoeuvre. Words that summarise the discontent that has built up in recent months among the leghisti of the North, from Piedmont to Friuli Venezia Giulia, passing through Lombardy and Veneto. Those for whom, in short, there is no stopping the Strait Bridge. And there are those who also read in the light of this dynamic the reassurances of the ministry led by Salvini on the Brescia-Padua high-speed railway. "It is one of the dossiers followed with particular interest and attention by the Mit," they explain from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, reiterating that "the extension of the Dl asset (which would have confirmed in 2025 the price revision system applied in 2024) was not technically possible in the budget law" and that "the objective is to intervene with Rfi at the beginning of January to verify the technical knots that remain to be unravelled."

Reflections on the focus on the North are bound to resonate in the internal debate within the League, which has become lively again after the leader's acquittal at the Open Arms trial. The issue has been raised, the Salvinians admit, but there is no internal war.

However, the confrontation is destined to be even more intense in view of the Federal Congress expected early this year, where Salvini will seek confirmation in the role of secretary. Among his loyalists there is the suspicion that someone, in controversy with the current leadership, is working under the radar, but a challenger is not yet in sight. The date has been hypothesised as the end of February, or March at the latest, and the debate on the venue is also open: it could be in Lombardy, but also in Veneto, as an opportunity for a show of strength towards an inevitable tug-of-war between allies for the choice of the centre-right's candidate for governor at the regional elections for the post-Zaia period.

In the meantime, the next opportunity for internal confrontation within the League could be represented by the meeting of the parliamentary groups that, as usual, will be held at the beginning of the new year. It cannot be ruled out that Romeo's role as group leader in the Senate will also be questioned, although no one at the moment would have asked for a step back from the person directly concerned, who was appointed Lombardy's regional secretary in December. In that capacity, Romeo will call an assembly in the coming weeks with all the mayors and elected Lega Lombarda members in the region, followed closely by the Lega Lombarda executive council called to elect the deputy regional secretary. The role should fall to Luca Toccalini, who had tried to challenge Romeo before withdrawing his candidature in favour of a unified one, or to a Lega Lega member indicated by him.