Lega, at the 40th anniversary party in Varese the base asks for “a new push”. And Salvini downplays it: “Bossi’s insults? They are important advice”

There Lombard League celebrate at Varese its fortieth birthday without the birthday boy, its founder Umberto Bossi. After the frontal attack on Salvini yesterday, the senatur remains in Gemonio. And so Secretary Salvini goes to the square in Varese, in front of the historic headquarters of the League, together with the Northern League ministers and a few hundred militants. But the words of the “boss” left their mark among the Northern League base. “I still have nostalgia for when the League was the League It’s too watered down now” says a militant historian. “When Umberto speaks you always have to think” adds another Northern League member in a green jersey. In the square there are those who brought some memorabilia. Dollars with Bossi’s face. A photo of Salvini with a cow. Show it directly to the secretary. “This is when you conceived the bridge over the Strait, bullshit”. From the stage everyone thanks the founder Bossi and the secretary Salvini. Calderoli announces another of the decisive steps for autonomy in the Chambers. The group leader Romeo winks at the base: “This party is the right opportunity to rediscover our identity, our origins and our vocation”. Minister Giorgetti will take care of closing ranks: “Sometimes you have to know how to keep quiet, sometimes you have to react, other times you have to endure this is the history of the League – recalls Giorgetti – with some rules, however, including hierarchy and discipline which must not become servility”. Salvini is welcomed by applause from the square. He thanks Bossi from the stage “without him we wouldn’t be here” and comments to the reporters that “I’ve been used to his insulting and polemical phone calls for thirty years so I need them to improve”. But this time, the criticism did not come via phone call but in the press. In fact, as Salvini himself recalled, the two have not spoken for some time.