”Skattepengarna ska användas här, inte på Sicilien”

Lega Nord (LN; literally "North League"), whose complete name is Lega Nord per l'Indipendenza della Padania ("North League for the Independence of Padania"), is a regionalist political party in Italy. The party is often referred to as Northern League by English-language sources, while in Italy it is also referred to simply as Lega or Carroccio. The LN was founded in 1991 as a federation of several regional parties of Northern and Central Italy, notably including Liga Veneta, Lega Lombarda, Piemont Autonomista, Uniun Ligure, Lega Emiliano-Romagnola and Alleanza Toscana. The party advocates the transformation of Italy into a federal state, fiscal federalism and greater regional autonomy, especially for Northern regions. At times the LN has advocated Padanian nationalism and the secession of the North, referred to by party members as Padania. Prior to the party's adoption of the term, Padania was infrequently used to name the Po Valley and was promoted since 1963 by sports journalist Gianni Brera as a modern name for Cisalpine Gaul. Lega Nord's founder and former long-standing leader is Umberto Bossi, who was the party's secretary from 1991 to 2012. He was succeeded by Roberto Maroni (now President of Lombardy), then in December 2013 Matteo Salvini became the new secretary after defeating Bossi in a leadership election. Lorenzo Fontana and Giancarlo Giorgetti are deputy secretaries. Other leading members include Luca Zaia (President of Veneto), Roberto Calderoli, Massimiliano Fedriga, Gian Marco Centinaio, Roberto Cota, Roberto Castelli, Francesco Speroni, Massimo Bitonci and Attilio Fontana. Under Salvini, the party has emphasized Euroscepticism, opposition to immigration, and other "populist" policies, while forming an alliance with nationalist and right-wing populist parties such as France's National Front, the Netherlands' Party for Freedom and the Freedom Party of Austria at the European level. The party also established a sister party in Southern Italy, Us with Salvini. All this has been opposed by Bossi and, to some extent, criticised by Maroni and Zaia. In the most recent regional elections the LN was the largest party in Veneto (where Zaia was re-elected President by 50.1% of the vote in 2015) and Lombardy, the second-largest in Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, the third-largest in Liguria, Marche and Umbria, the fourth-largest in Piedmont, and the fifth-largest in Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino.