Brothers of Italy

Brothers of Italy ( it, Fratelli d'Italia, FdI) is a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party in Italy. It is led by Giorgia Meloni, the incumbent Prime Minister of Italy and the first woman to serve in the position. According to observers, as the biggest party in the centre-right coalition after the 2022 Italian general election, FdI marked Italy's first far-right-led government in the republican era and its most right-wing government since World War II.

In December 2012, FdI emerged from a right-wing split within Silvio Berlusconi's party, The People of Freedom (PdL). The bulk of FdI's leadership including Meloni, who has led the party since 2014, as well as the symbol of the movement (the tricolour flame), comes from the post-fascist National Alliance (AN), which was founded in 1995 and merged into PdL in 2009. AN was the successor to the Italian Social Movement (MSI), active from 1945 to 1995, a neo-fascist party founded by former members of the banned National Fascist Party (1921–1943) and the Republican Fascist Party (1943–1945).

Meloni has described FdI as a mainstream conservative party. Observers have variously described it as conservative, national-conservative, neo-fascist, or post-fascist, and right-wing populist. It has also been described as anti-immigrant, nationalist, and nativist. It is socially conservative, and has taken a Eurosceptic position, while being in favor of Atlantism. A member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party, of which Meloni has served as president since September 2020, it proposes a confederal Europe of nations as opposed to a federal Europe.

History

Background and foundation

In November 2012, Ignazio La Russa and Maurizio Gasparri, leaders of the Protagonist Right, a faction within The People of Freedom (PdL), announced their support for Angelino Alfano in the party primary scheduled for December. The subsequent cancellation of the primary was not agreed with by La Russa and many others in the party. On 16 December 2012, Giorgia Meloni, Fabio Rampelli, Guido Crosetto, and Giuseppe Cossiga organised in Rome the Primaries of Ideas, in which they openly criticised Silvio Berlusconi's leadership and any possible prospect of an electoral alliance with Prime Minister Mario Monti, proposed by some leading factions of the party, among them '' Liberamente'', Network Italy, Reformism and Freedom, Liberal Populars, New Italy, and ''FareItalia''.

On 17 December 2012, La Russa, one of the three PdL national coordinators, announced he was leaving the party in order to form the National Centre-Right, including not just right-wingers but also Christian democrats and liberals from Forza Italia (FI) such as Crosetto and Cossiga. The split from the PdL was agreed with Berlusconi in order to better represent the Italian right and offer an appealing choice to right-wing voters. Simultaneously, Crosetto and Meloni announced the formation of Brothers of Italy, whose name was taken from the first line of the Italian national anthem. On 21 December, the two groups, formed mainly by former members of National Alliance such as La Russa, Meloni, Rampelli, Massimo Corsaro, Viviana Beccalossi, and Alfredo Mantica, joined forces as Brothers of Italy – National Centre-Right, usually shortened to Brothers of Italy (FdI). La Russa's followers soon formed their own groups in most regional councils, starting with the Regional Council of Lombardy, and the Senate of the Republic. Carlo Fidanza and Marco Scurria, MEPs in the European People's Party group, also joined the party.

2013 general election and aftermath

In the 2013 Italian general election, the party obtained 2.0% of the vote and won nine seats in the Chamber of Deputies. On 5 March 2013, the party's executive board appointed La Russa president, Crosetto coordinator, and Meloni leader in the Chamber of Deputies. During the 2013 Italian presidential election's fourth ballot on 19 April, FdI decided to support Franco Marini, a Democratic Party (PD) member supported also by PdL and Lega Nord (LN). Following the unsuccessful outcome of the vote, FdI started voting for colonel Sergio De Caprio, known for having arrested Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore Riina. On 29 April, Meloni announced in the Chamber of Deputies the party's vote of no confidence for Enrico Letta's government, supported by PD, PdL, and Civic Choice.

In September 2013, FdI launched Workshop for Italy (OpI), a political initiative aimed at broadening the party's base. The newly formed OpI's political committee, led by Cossiga, included, among others, former minister of Foreign Affairs Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata, former members of AN (notably including Gianni Alemanno, Mario Landolfi, Sergio Berlato, Adolfo Urso, and Souad Sbai), former members of FI (including former Socialists like Giulio Tremonti and Antonio Guidi, and former Christian Democrats like Fabio Garagnani), former members of the Union of the Centre (Magdi Allam and Luciano Ciocchetti), and a former member of the LN (Oreste Rossi). Alemanno's Italy First and Urso's ''FareItalia'' were to join FdI by February 2014.

National Alliance Foundation

In December 2013, the National Alliance Foundation, the association in charge of administering the assets of the defunct party, authorized FdI, supported by Alemanno and Urso, to use the logo of AN in the 2014 European Parliament election in Italy, despite opposition from the Movement for National Alliance alternative front composed of The Right, Future and Freedom, Tricolour Flame, I the South, and New Alliance, as well as the former members of AN who had joined FI like senators Maurizio Gasparri and Altero Matteoli.

In February 2014, the party organised a primary in which members and supporters agreed to change the party's name to Brothers of Italy – National Alliance, chose the new symbol, including in small AN's one, and re-elected Meloni as president. During the party's first congress in March 2014, FdI ratified the primary's outcomes; the congress also voted for the party to leave the European People's Party Group in the European Parliament and adopt Eurosceptic positions. In the 2014 European Parliament election in Italy, FdI obtained 3.7% of the vote and no seats, while doing well in Central and Southern Italy, especially in Lazio (5.6%), Umbria (5.4%), Abruzzo (4.7%), and Campania (4.5%), as well as in north-eastern Friuli-Venezia Giulia (4.4%).

During an assembly of the association in October 2015, the representatives of FdI, supported by former AN heavyweights who had remained in the PdL, won a decisive vote over a front led by Alemanno, who had left FdI earlier, joined forces with former allies of Gianfranco Fini and wanted to form a larger party, including FdI, which retained the use of AN's name and symbol, while Alemanno announced that he would create a Movement for the United Right.

Road to the 2018 general election

In November 2015, it was announced that the party would undergo a new process of enlargement and that a new political committee, named Our Land (TN), would be launched by January 2016. TN would comprise FdI, along with other right-wing politicians, notably including Cossiga (former deputy of FI and founding member of FdI), Alberto Giorgetti (a deputy of FI, who was long a member of AN) and Walter Rizzetto (deputy of Free Alternative, originally elected with the Five Star Movement). In March 2016, Rizzetto officially joined FdI and it was announced that the party's group in the Chamber would be renamed Brothers of Italy–Our Land. The name change never happened, but the party's enlargement continued with the switch of two deputies from FI.

In the 2016 Rome municipal election, Meloni ran for mayor with the support of Us with Salvini but in competition with the candidate supported by FI. Meloni won 20.6% of the vote, almost twice than FI's candidate, but did not qualify for the run-off, while FdI obtained 12.3%. In the 2017 Sicilian regional election, Nello Musumeci, a conservative close to the party, was elected president of Sicily.

During the party's second congress in December 2017, Meloni was re-elected president, the party was renamed simply Brothers of Italy, and a new symbol was unveiled. In the event, FdI welcomed several newcomers, notably including Daniela Santanchè and Bruno Mancuso, respectively from FI and Popular Alternative (AP). Mancuso became the party's third senator after Stefano Bertacco, as well as Bartolomeo Amidei, had previously switched from FI. Additionally, Crosetto and Urso returned to an active role in the party. Finally, Alessandro Urzì led the Alto Adige in the Heart party into FdI.

2018 general election and aftermath

In the 2018 Italian general election, as part of the centre-right coalition, FdI obtained 4.4% of the vote and won more than three times the seats won in 2013. In November 2018, in the run-up to the 2019 European Parliament election in Italy, the party agreed to join the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament, opening the way for a pact with other minor conservative parties in Italy, notably including Raffaele Fitto's Direction Italy. On 29 October 2019, Raffaele Fitto's party Direction Italy officially merged into FdI, and on 7 December 2019 the National Movement for Sovereignty of Roberto Menia and Gianni Alemanno merged into FdI, In 2020, other minor right-wing parties, such as Gabriella Peluso's Protagonist South and Lorenzo Loiacono's Right Bank, also merged into FdI.

Party member Marco Marsilio won 48.0% of the vote in the 2019 Abruzzo regional election and became FdI's first regional president on 10 February. Since governing the region, which ranked as the ninth-worst region by number of deaths per capita during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, critics said undermined access to abortion and privatized health care, FdI has made it harder for migrants to access social housing. Meloni reclaimed this by saying that "Italians first is not just a slogan." For the 2019 European Parliament election, FdI recruited several candidates, including five outgoing MEPs (two of Direction Italy, plus three more recent splinters from FI: Fabrizio Bertot, Stefano Maullu, and Elisabetta Gardini), other former FI politicians ( Alfredo Antoniozzi and Monica Stefania Baldi), and sociologist Francesco Alberoni. FdI obtained 6.4% of the vote (10.3% in Calabria, 9.0% in Lazio, 8.9% in Apulia, and 8.4% in Basilicata) and five MEPs.

For the 2022 Italian presidential election on 24–29 January, FdI voted Carlo Nordio when all the other main parties proposed a re-election of incumbent president Sergio Mattarella. In April 2022, the party organised a large convention in Milan, in order to discuss its political program and start the campaign for the next general election.

Road to the 2022 general election

Heading into the 2022 Italian general election rising in the polls, a snap election that was called after the 2022 Italian government crisis, it was agreed among the centre-right coalition that the leader of the party receiving the most votes would be put forward as the prime minister candidate. As of July 2022, FdI was the first party in the coalition according to opinion polling, and she was widely expected to become Prime Minister of Italy if the centre-right coalition obtained an absolute majority in Parliament, which would be the most right-wing government in the history of the Italian Republic according to some academics.

In an attempt to moderate the party to placate fears among those who describe FdI as neo-fascist or far right, including fears within the European Commission that she could lead Italy towards Hungary under Viktor Orbán, Meloni told the foreign press that Italian fascism is history. As president of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party, she said she shared the experiences and values of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, Likud in Israel, and the Republican Party in the United States.

2022 general election and aftermath

In the run-up to the election, several politicians previously affiliated with Berlusconi's FI joined the FdI electoral lists. Notably, they included Giulio Tremonti (ex- PSI and ex-FI, former finance minister), Marcello Pera

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