German far-right surges as the crisis of the West accelerates

The general trajectory of the West, to put it bluntly, is very bad

I’ve just returned from Germany, where the far-right AfD has surged in federal elections – and are now stronger than at any point since the defeat of the Nazis 80 years ago. Here are lessons for where many countries – including Britain – are heading.

They doubled their vote share, securing 20%, and 152 seats, on a platform including the deportation of migrants from Germany

Here is the latest example of a general trend – the rise of far right authoritarianism in the West. The ascendant far right is a symptom of the decline of the West, and an accelerant.

It’s not all bad news – Die Linke, the left party was written off a few months ago, but won 9% and nearly doubled its number of seats. Yesterday, I was at an exuberant Die Linke party in Berlin where a Kurdish German politician named Ferat Koçak won a decisive victory.

The conservative Christian Democratic Union came top, with 29% of the vote and 208 seats, while the Social Democrats, which headed the defeated governing coalition, had their worst result since 1887.

This is a story we’ve seen across Western Europe – social democrats have abandoned social democracy, have proved unable to protect the living standards and security of working class people, and the far right has offered their own answers to that – that your lives are difficult not because of an economic system rigged in favour of elites, but because of migrants and refugees

The AfD were particularly strong in eastern Germany, where many working class people suffered the consequences of the restoration of capitalism, and resented the subsequent loss of security. The definition of ‘working class’ used by pollsters is often too restrictive, but with that caveat, the AfD secured 38% of voters defined as working class, up from 21% last time, while the Social Democrats – the supposed traditional party of the working class – collapsed by 14 points to 12%

That means the far right won three times more support from German workers than the AfD.

And it’s clear what has helped drive the AfD vote. 83% of Germans say the economic situation in Germany is bad, up from 39% in 2022, and amongst AfD voters, 96% say the economic situation is bad.

53% of Germans say they’re worried about prices rising so much they can’t pay their bills, but amongst AfD voters it’s 75%, followed by Die Linke voters on 60%.

According to Chatman House, Germany’s share of industrial work has declined from 40% in 1990 to 27% today, and its shrinking industrial sector has dragged eurozone manufacturing into reverse - with construction, car manufacture and electric vehicles particularly in crisis

Its economy shrank last year in real terms, and the German economy is smaller than it was five years ago again in real terms.

As it happens, as the New York Times notes, without immigration the German economy would be in an even worse state. As they say:

The workforce crisis would look even worse if not for the millions of refugees and other migrants Germany has taken in from countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine over the past decade. Economists say they’ve helped fill in the holes left by retirements and the shift to part-time work.

Alas, migrants and refugees have been scapegoated for economic injustices they haven’t caused: an age old phenomenon, of course.

The triumphant CDU have ruled out a coalition with the AfD, instead likely to form a coalition with the shattered remains of the Social Democrats. But mirroring the trajectory of other so-called ‘centre-right’ parties, the CDU has shifted rightwards from Angela Merkel, who whilst being the driving force of imposing austerity on particularly the poorer states of the Eurozone, like Greece and Portugal, brought a million refugees to Germany in 2015. The CDU has shifted towards anti-migrant politics, and the so-called ‘firewall’, which treats the far right as illegitimate and beyond the pale, has already begun to crumble. A few weeks ago, the CDU put a motion to the German parliament to turn away asylum seekers at the borders - which then passed with the support of the far right, triggering thousands of Germans to take to the streets

We can see this phenomenon across the West – mainstream parties adopting the rhetoric and policies of the far right. They think this will keep the far right at bay, but in practise it legitimises the far right, and shifts the political conversation on to the territory that suits them. The far right can always outbid the mainstream parties on anti-migrant politics, and will always seem more authentic.

We’ve seen this in France, under the so-called ‘centrist’ Macron, where Marine Le Pen’s far right have surged, the Netherlands, where the far right now lead the governing party, and other countries.

Now Germany of course has been a key facilitator of Israel’s genocide. Germany has forced the Palestinian people to pay for the Holocaust, when the German state with the active complicity of much of the German population exterminated six million Jews, as well as millions of others.

And I’m afraid the position on Gaza is bad across the board in Germany, with the Social Democrats and Greens legitimising war crimes, but Die Linke has been bad, too. I saw graffiti around Berlin noting this, such as: ‘Free Palestine from German guilt’. It’s striking that this consensus holds in the political elite, but public opinion overwhelmingly oppose the genocide.

In any case the first act of the next chancellor, CDU leader Friedrich Merz, is to invite Benjamin Netanyahu to Germany, stating it was “as an open challenge against the scandalous decision of hte International Criminal Court to describe the Prime Minister as a war criminal. Just as a point of fact here, while Benjamin Netanyahu is clearly and transparently a war criminal, the ICC hasn’t called a war criminal. They have charged him with war crimes and crimes against humanity, on the basis that he should be tried in a court of law to establish whether he is guilty. Which clearly he is.

Like other governments who have done this - such as Italy and France - it underlines how Western leaders are determined to bury whatever remains of the international order so as to protect Israel from accountability for genocide.

On the positive side, Ferat Kocak absolutely stormed it in Neukölln, winning 33.3% of the vote, more than double last time. He’s someone who stands for economic justice, against anti-migrant scapeogating, and against the genocide in Gaza. He ran a phenomenal grassroots campaign, with huge numbers of volunteers knocked on every door in the district to talk to voters - which unlike the UK and US, isn’t a regular feature of German politics.

There was an exuberant atmosphere, and we sang The Internationale, classic.

What is very striking is Die Linke came top amongst younger voters, but that was driven by young women. Over a third of young women voted for Die Linke, but the AfD came top among young men, winning 25% compared to 15% for Die Linke. This isn’t a phenomenon restricted to Germany, and I have to say it’s increasingly clear that social media - such as TikTok - has been a big driver of radicalising young men, and the left generally needs to get a grip on that.

To their credit, Die Linke have developed a very good TikTok strategy the left elsewhere can learn from.

There’s another lesson from the election, too. Die Linke was nearly destroyed by Sahra Wagenknecht, who used to be their co-leader. She increasingly broke with Die Link over, for example, immigration, Ukraine and Covid, and then split altogether, forming her own party, blending social conservatism with left-wing economics.

That led Die Linke to plummet in the polls, looking almost certain to get less than the 5% threshold to win seats in Parliament. So while 9% might not sound huge, it has to be seen in that context - with the hope that the explosion particularly among younger women is something to build on.

In the end, Sarah Wagenknecht got just below the 5% needed to get into parliament. There’s a lesson here - a common argument is that if the left abandons what is called ‘woke’ or ‘identity politics’ - which means in practise defending the rights of women and minorities - then it will flourish. But the fact Sarah Wagenknecht failed and Die Linke actually surged in the polls after her faction left tells its own story.

Alas, the rise of the German far right, like the far right everywhere, should disturb us. The lights are going out in Europe. In the US there is an overtly far right government. The stigma attached to far right politics, because of the genocidal war unleashed by Nazism and Fascism, has gone.

The economic model in the West is broken, driving insecurity, stagnation and decline. And that fuels despair - despair which the far right can ably manipulate. Unless the left gets its act together, and offers a coherent vision and leadership, then we risk returning to Europe’s dark past. Already Hungary under Viktor Orban - whose leader has hailed the AfD, who returned the compliment - is no longer a democracy, and there are huge question marks over the survival of US democracy.

The left needs to offer a vision of a society where the wealth created by millions of workers goes to the workers themselves, rather than rich elites, where the basic need of housing is met, with security and affordability, where public services are world class, where we invest in the future of societies - like meeting the existential menace of the climate emergency by investing in new industries that create well-paid secure jobs.

But Germany is a major warning for the UK. Keir Starmer lauded the former SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz, both of them in a similar political place. Well, Reform UK is already leading some opinion polls. The risk of a government which has no answers to a crisis ridden country is paving the way for the radical right to take over. Germany, I’m afraid, shows us where we are heading.