1. A short story about why and how the draft Lega-M5S agreement (left), and the statement (right) issued by the two parties last night, are both consistent with Lega's long held position and strategy to leave the euro 
2. Back in Jan. 2017 I got word that Lega was exploring mechanisms to leave the euro, including the applicability of Article 50. I was also told the party was having backchannel conversations with M5S. I reached out to a senior Lega official
They denied contacts with M5S, but explained how the party wanted to exit the euro (and the EU). This is what they said:
4. Lega doesn’t want a referendum. It wants to negotiate a euro exit. If that fails it will look for a way via parliament. The mandate to leave passes through a general election
5. Crucially, Lega wants to create the conditions for an exit: eg ‘we wanted to reform Europe, but it was impossible’. Whatever the agreement with M5S ends up saying, for Lega it is simply part of enabling a longer term vision
6. Some additional considerations:
- Support for the party is growing (now >25%), and it has the potential to increase a lot further by winning support in centre and south Italy.
- Support for the party is growing (now >25%), and it has the potential to increase a lot further by winning support in centre and south Italy.
- Lega has built alliances with parties across EU (and beyond...). The next European Parliament elections will be important in this sense (strongly suggest having a look at numbers - eurosceptic bloc will be unprecedentedly big, social democrats not so much)
- I’ve read a lot of ‘yeah, haha look at Syriza and Greece’ comments. There is a crucial difference between Italy and Greece: Lega wants to leave. Syriza didn’t.
7. None of this means Lega will succeed, nor that Italy is leaving the euro any time soon, nor that majority of voters wants to leave (yet). But it’s important to properly understand Lega’s position: Leaving the euro is existential to its entire platform, and current leadership
