The party, whose complete name is
Identity and Action – People and Freedom (
Identità e Azione – Popolo e Libertà), was formed on 25 November 2015 by a group of splinters from the
New Centre-Right (NCD), a
centre-right party which was then part of
government led by
Matteo Renzi, leader of the
centre-left Democratic Party (PD). Two deputies (
Vincenzo Piso and
Eugenia Roccella) and four senators (
Andrea Augello,
Luigi Compagna,
Carlo Giovanardi and Gaetano Quagliariello) left the NCD because they no longer supported its alliance with the PD. They were joined by two deputies,
Guglielmo Vaccaro (ex-PD, later
Unique Italy–IU) and
Renata Bueno (
South American Union Italian Emigrants–USEI), and several regional politicians, including
Davide Bellomo (independent,
Apulia),
Stefano Casali (
Tosi List for Veneto,
Veneto),
Giovanni Chiodi (independent, former
President of
Abruzzo) and
Vittoriano Solazzi (
Marche 2020,
Marche). Since its foundation, IdeA aimed at being part of the larger
centre-right coalition. In the meantime, the four deputies of IdeA, along with
Aniello Formisano of
Italy of Values (IdV, a party which had long been part of centre-left coalitions), formed a sub-group, named after the USEI (and, later, "USEI–IdeA"), within the
Mixed Group of the Chamber, while the party's four senators joined the heterogeneous
Great Autonomies and Freedom (GAL) 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 (UdC) within the Mixed Group, and the Senate, where it left the GAL group and launched the alternative
Federation of Freedom (FdL) group along with the
Italian Liberal Party (PLI) and others, under Quagliariello's leadership. In December 2017 IdeA was supposed to be a founding member of
Us with Italy (NcI), 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 (AP – two groups, a Christian-democratic one led by
Maurizio Lupi and a liberal one led by
Enrico Costa),
Direction Italy (DC),
Civic Choice (SC),
Act! (F!),
Cantiere Popolare (CP) and the
Movement for the Autonomies (MpA). 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. ==References==