Identity and Action


Identity and Action, also known as IdeA Movement, is a conservative political party in Italy, whose membership stretches from Christian democracy to liberal conservatism.
The party's leader is Gaetano Quagliariello, a former minister for Institutional Reforms.

History

The party was formed on 25 November 2015 by a group of splinters from the New Centre-Right, a centre-right party which was then part of government led by Matteo Renzi, leader of the centre-left Democratic Party. Two deputies and four senators left the NCD because they no longer supported its alliance with the PD. They were joined by two deputies, Guglielmo Vaccaro and Renata Bueno, and several regional politicians, including Davide Bellomo, Stefano Casali, Giovanni Chiodi and Vittoriano Solazzi.
Since its foundation, IdeA aimed at being part of the larger centre-right coalition. The party established a particularly close relationship with Unique Italy, of which Quagliariello became speaker in the Senate. In the meantime, the four deputies of IdeA, along with Aniello Formisano of Italy of Values, formed a sub-group, named after the USEI, within the Mixed Group of the Chamber, while the party's four senators joined the heterogeneous Great Autonomies and Freedom group.
In May 2017 the party changed its allegiance both in the Chamber, where it formed a sub-group with the Union of the Centre within the Mixed Group, and the Senate, where it left the GAL group and launched the alternative Federation of Freedom group along with the Italian Liberal Party and others, under Quagliariello's leadership.
In December 2017 IdeA was supposed to be a founding member of Us with Italy, a pro-Silvio Berlusconi centrist electoral list within the centre-right coalition for the 2018 general election, but finally stood out. NcI was launched by splinters from Popular Alternative, Direction Italy, Civic Choice, Act!, Popular Construction and the Movement for the Autonomies. However, in early January 2018, after that NcI had been joined also by the UdC, IdeA joined too, with the goal of reaching 3%, required to win seats from proportional lists under a new electoral law.
In the election the NcI obtained a mere 1.3% of the vote and only Quagliariello was re-elected for IdeA. Soon after the election, the party quit NcI and, along with the UdC, formed a pact with FI and joined its parliamentary group.
In the 2019 Basilicata regional election the party obtained 4.2% of the vote.