The far right in Germany

[username44416]

Chillingly it looks like the far right AfD party has taken Saxony and Thuringia. Many in the party are Nazi sympathisers; is Europe's largest power on the brink of a resurgence in fascism?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/sep/01/german-far-right-party-afd-state-election-victory-thuringia

It is scary, but at the same time Brexit/ /Rwanda demonstrates to me at least, that similar policies would be quite popular with parts of the UK electorate, possibly only in the privacy of their own voting booth.

But Thuringia where the AfD won, has had little if any change to their demographic as there's barely any immigration there. The AfD campaigned on remigration and their leader is known to use Nazi slogans. Why would someone who's not fascist vote for known Nazi sympathisers?

There is quite a lot of "bUt WhAt Is FaR-rIgHt ReAlLy" around at the moment. Have a look at the replies in social media discussions on the topic of the riots. It's almost as if it's been distributed to the bots as the talking point du jour.

Also the near-terrorist logic of "Well what do you expect, ordinary people's reasonable concerns were not listened to, so they felt they had to take matters into their own hands", because of course working-class people have no agency whatsoever.

The CDU really fucked up with their mass immigration stance of recent years.
They should have learned the lessons from the UK and Sweden but no, and no it's citizens are being stabbed to death in the streets in the name of Islamic terrorism.
People are quite rightly disgusted. The issue with Germany (and the UK) is that any rational discussion gets shut down as being racist or islamaphobic so people get drawn to the assholes like BNP or AFD.
The only way forward is to rethink its policies, come down tough on any extremism, and deport trouble makers. But that won't happen.

They haven't had mass migration issues but they have been left behind after the unification of Germany, there is a lot of deprivation and the far right can easily take this and manipulate people by telling them who they think the cause of their deprivation is.

It's too simplistic to just say 'everyone is a far right fascist and we can ignore them'. Europe and the UK is paying the price of that attitude over the last 10-20 years.

Western voting systems are indeed leaving people feeling that peacefully registering their discontent is not working.

The riots were a mix of protests and riots. Rioters are a certain breed of people and I'm sure many of them are pretty much politically disengaged 99% of the time. But amidst the riots there were also protests which got derailed - those people are not being listened to and seemingly have no agency beyond the voting booth because when they did protest, the riots took over and Keir labelled everyone thugs.

‘people who believe Germany should be for ethnic Germans is far right.’

one word too many in there….

I don't really understand how you can say this when we have had 3 elections since brexit and the BNP have yet to win a single seat, and reform UK have only gained 5 in the most recent one. Albeit some of that is the way we vote (FPTP) , and if we had a more proportional system reform might have had more seats - but still in no way comparable to the near majority in Germany and very close call in France

Which is not to say that there aren't racists in the UK but views doesn't seem to translate into votes, for whatever reason.

there is a lot of deprivation and the far right can easily take this and manipulate people by telling them who they think the cause of their deprivation is.

Which is exactly what happened in the same area when they voted in the Nazis.

It's too simplistic to just say 'everyone is a far right fascist and we can ignore them'. Europe and the UK is paying the price of that attitude over the last 10-20 years.

I didn't say that everyone is a far right fascist and we should ignore them. I'm aware of the rise of the far right in Europe and am aware of some of the reasons why some people vote for them.

In Germany, the younger voters who have no recollection of fascism in Germany, voted for the AfD as they have a large presence on social media, particularly TikTok. I'm sure those from the older generation are sympathetic to their ethos.

Reform had 14% vote share and they came from nowhere weeks before the election. That's the very essence of an idea translating into vote share.

Merkel's action taking in Syrian refugees wasn't initially unpopular in Germany at the time, but she lost support for it when the Federal government didn't step in and provide the funding/resources to help accommodate them. It stretched the bounds of charity from the communities and volunteers on the frontline.

Good boundaries make for good neighbours. True on housing estates as it is for countries.

The difference between the UK and Germany is that if Reform achieved similar results they'd almost certainly get a coalition with the Conservatives. In Germany absolutely no other party will do a coalition with AfD. Not even BSW would go into coalition with them, although they may try to do a cooperation deal.

Except they didn't. Reform is continuity UKIP, right the way down to having the same leader (if you believe that Tice was running the show until Farage popped up to run the election campaign, I have a bridge to sell you, as the Americans say). UKIP polled 12.7% in 2015.

I don't disagree. But that wasn't the point of your other post.

Expel anyone who isn't an ethnic German?

So my British born friend married to a German and living in Germany is out? Strewth.

Oh don't worry, "ethnic German" will be defined in such a way that British people (white, of course) are OK. After all, they're probably descended from a Saxon at some point along the line. 🙄

(Plus of course it's definitely not AfD party policy. Absolutely not. Nobody in the party hierarchy has any such sympathies, my goodness no. Anyone who says otherwise must be a cultural Marxist spreader of false news.)

I think quite a few 'views' got translated into votes and I think you are down playing how FPTP bends election results out of shape beyond what many think is acceptable. UKIP in 2015 got nearly 4 million votes and one seat in Parliament. Lib Dems got 2.4 million votes and 8 MPs. The SNP 1.5 million votes and 56 MPs. The BNP fell apart after Nick Griffin's clown show on Question Time and even prior to that they had only won a few council seats. Love him or loathe him Farage offered a more polished form nationalism and an unashamed pro British platform that other parties were terrified of going near and he was rewarded with the afore mentioned 4 million votes. Under PR that would have translated into nearly 60 seats. The votes are clearly there but the current system favours Labour and Conservatives and they have every incentive to keep it that way.

Really? It's pretty obvious it's triggered by mass immigration and the dire effects this is having across Europe.

If people still don't get this, there really is no hope

It's being triggered by a fear of mass immigration and the fear of potential dire effects. Much of it is being whipped up with dog whistle politics. East Germany doesn't have high immigration. It's had billions of post-unification investment and huge opportunities have been created, but they're unfamiliar and new opportunities. And with East Germany you have a population demographic that reflects that anyone with education and aspiration (mostly young women) moved West in the decade after the wall came down. The remaining population has a consequential education and gender imbalance that is slow to resolve.

What we're seeing in the rise of the right-wing is a backlash against post-industrialisation that's finding a scapegoat in immigration and 'foreign'. Communities that have over-invested their identity in heavy industry (coal, steelmaking, etc.) are losing that identity with post-industrialisation. Their fears are are being stoked to form new community identities under a banner of Down With This Sort of Thing. They're being exploited by grifters filling the identity vacuum with fear.

You can see the dog whistle most clearly with someone like Farage, who's constantly aligning himself with marginalised communities (he's done it with fishing, he's now doing it with Clacton), he expresses concern, shouts about unfairness, gets himself into a position where he could make positive change, and then does fuck all because he's earned his grift and can live on that for a while. Rinse and repeat with another 'concern'.

This.

When people are censored for having their concerns heard it eventually goes nuclear unfortunately and they will look to the voice that most aligns with their own.

This is also why Reform won so many seats. But as the above poster says - what is considered far-right is a matter of opinion. I don’t know anything about this party in Germany btw so can’t comment on their particular party line.

Not sure why you have put 'concern' in inverted commas as if it is not real. An awful lot of people are genuinely concerned with what they see as an unsustainable inward flow of low skilled people carrying an awful lot cultural baggage that is at odds with wider societal norms. People are not being triggered by an irrational fear of mass migration they are seeing the actual effects of it with their very own eyes and don't like it.

Is it surprising that some bloke or woman from a chronically overlooked post industrial northern town with crumbling infrastructure, falling down schools, a half boarded up high street, crap zero hour contract job prospective in a region that has been ignored by successive governments for the best part of 40 years made essentially a ‘fuck you’ vote and opted for Reform/UKIP/Brexit etc. I agree that Farage and his ilk are opportunistic grifters but they have been allowed to exploit and thrive on the discontent created by mainstream politics which at best sees these communities as acceptable collateral damage.

Owen Jones inadvertently exposed one of the key issues populists exploit across Europe when interviewing that young Tarquin at the Conservative Party conference about migration and diversity. Sure, the Tories are not fringe but when that young Boris clone challenged Jones as to why 'diversity' was an intrinsically 'a good thing' he looked a little taken back as in 'how on earth could diversity not be a good thing' and that is precisely what populists like Farage exploit.

@username44416

Exactly what policies of the AfD are far right, Nazi or fascist?

I know they are widely described in the media as such but I have seen any explanation of why.

Why don't you look up their policies and decide for yourself?

I put concerns in inverted commas in that specific sentence because to Farage and the grifters they're not genuine concerns, they're something they can exploit. Look at Farage and fishing - he's spent years claiming to represent their interests, but when he got himself onto the Fisheries Committee in the European Parliament he couldn't be bothered turning up and participating! It's the same with Clacton, he gets elected and then dives straight off to the US to suck up to Trump.

The Daily Telegraph published one of the best analyses of the state of the post-industrial north in this article on Grimsby - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/16/uk-shrinking-towns-despite-record-immigration/ The observation towards the end of the article that over-prescriptive funding is preventing local initiatives fits with what I've seen in a few towns. It also points out that immigration is not the problem, it's the emigration of the young and aspirational. I'd also add that it's my observation that a lack of educational aspiration and a decline in pride of place are both contributing factors. The UK is just a mess of litter and derelict buildings, because people have stopped caring.