Germany’s Political Disaster and Can the Lib Dems Fight Back?

The Rest Is Politics

The episode examines the destabilizing effects of recent regional elections in Germany, where far-right and far-left parties have made signi

Key takeaways

• The AfD topped the polls in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, resulting in the CDU losing all its seats in that region.
• In Berlin, the far-left Die Linke party won a regional election, raising concerns about the future of NATO and EU stability.

Main topics

• German regional election results
• UK rural policy and farming

Notable quotes

It is also a political earthquake.

Conclusion

The episode highlights a period of intense political volatility across

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) When Angela Merkel was busy serving over 16 years as the Chancellor of Germany, her party was the CDU and her constituency base was Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. At the regional election there at the weekend, the far-right Alternative for Deutschland topped the poll and Merkel's party secured precisely zero seats. The current Chancellor and CDU leader Friedrich Merz calls it a disaster. It is also a political earthquake. There was another one in Berlin, where the hard-left Die Linke party topped the pole, driving the CDU out of government there. Germany is the third largest economy in the world, it sits right at the heart of the whole future of the EU, and is increasingly central to how Europe funds its own defence. The AfD and Die Linke are existential threats to Germany's membership of the EU, and of NATO. So is this just a German domestic story? Or is it actually the story that determines what happens to Europe's security and our future? Speaker 2 (1:01) This episode Speaker 3 (1:02) is powered by Fuse Energy. £100. That is what one message to a friend could earn for you. Speaker 2 (1:09) Fuse Energy has one aim, keeping energy prices down for everyone, not just for those who ring up and threaten to leave. Speaker 3 (1:17) The tariffs are already... among the lowest on the market. And now they're doubling their referral offer. Refer one friend and you will get £100 off your bills. And Speaker 2 (1:27) that's each of you, £100 off your bills. So the maths does itself. You save on the tariff and then you both benefit from the referral on top. Simplicity, rarely seen today in today's political climate. Speaker 3 (1:38) And just remember the £100 is a limited offer. and it drops back to £50 when it ends. Energy prices, as we keep reminding you, Speaker 2 (1:47) are not settling down. Speaker 2 (2:16) Welcome to the Rest of This Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. A range of really interesting questions that have come in. But the ones that are really driving it that we're going to be discussing today are the results in the German elections, where you absolutely understand Germany are going to take us into the hearts of what's happening, not just with the far right, but now with the far left in the most important economy and political force in Europe. Then we're going to talk about rural Britain. much neglect said. What's happening with rural affairs? How do we think about rural communities in summer like Britain? We're going to get into the perennial subject of the Lib Dems and what their future could be. What's the future for centrist parties in Britain? We're going to talk about some more fun subjects, whether we could do longer interviews. We're going to talk about languages versus instruments. You're going to touch on the Royal National Lifeboat incident and particularly far-right protests against their escorting migrants. Maybe we'll get on to the question ultimately of hope. And we're starting, Alistair, with a question from our listener, Valentin. Should Merz be replaced as Keir Starmer was? Should Friedrich Merz, the Chancellor of Germany, be replaced? And this, of course, is in the wake of this catastrophic election result in the province of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. And how do you say that in German? Speaker 3 (3:32) Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Well... It's very hard to replace him if he doesn't want to go because the only way to do it would be to have a vote of confidence, which he loses. And then you would almost certainly be forced into an election, which you would also, on these results, Speaker 2 (3:47) clearly lose. And the results, just quickly as an explainer before you do the commentary, AFD, the alternative for Deutschland, the far-right party, 38.2%. SPD, the traditional kind of Labour party equivalent, 35.5%. And the CDU, which is a traditional... Tory equivalent, which is Friedrich Metz's own party, and this is running in Angela Merkel's own state, and she was, of course, the CDU leader, got below 5%, 4.9 % lost all its seats. It's unimaginable. It would be like the Tories being wiped out in a key seat where one of their leaders had been. Speaker 3 (4:29) Absolutely. No, it is unimaginable. I mean, if you think that when Fiona and I were in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern a few months ago, the hotel that we stayed in had a massive portrait of Angela Merkel on the wall. It's like her territory. And she won. She was an MP there for 30 years. She was four terms as chancellor. And in little or no time, they've gone to a place. This is the first time ever the CDU will have no representation in a regional parliament. And then before we come back to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, there was this other election in Berlin, which is its own regional parliament, which was won by Die Linke, which is this very left-wing party. And this is, again, was previously Christian Democrat, was previously CDU. Also there, the Social Democrat Party did really badly. And what's interesting about what's happened in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, people might think, well, this is good for the SPD. But the truth is that Manuela Svezi, who was the minister president there and the candidate, she fought a campaign that was very much about vote for me. This isn't a party, vote for me. And added to it, she probably had a lot of tactical voting in her favor. I'm Speaker 2 (5:44) the only person who can really take on the AFD, so she will have got a lot of... Well, her Speaker 3 (5:47) slogan was Die Frau gegen Blau, the woman against blue. Okay. So she will have picked up Delenka votes, CDU votes. Yeah. One of the reasons why the CDU will have dropped below the 5 % threshold that you have to get before you can get any seats in parliament, one of the reasons will be the CDU voters, I suspect, some of them will have voted for her as a protest against the AFD. That being said, it is catastrophic. Friedrich Merz came out straight away, did a press conference and said it's a disaster. And it is. And it's also, it's an earthquake, I would say. And the thing is, it's more, it's complicated though. It's not simply saying the AFD are on the march because over in Berlin, you've got them attacking from the Speaker 2 (6:32) left. And the Berlin thing is a double-edged sword. So this vote for Delinke, which as you say, is a pretty far left populist party. I mean, it's got elements of the East German Communist Party. it was running on tickets that including things like the expropriation of all corporate landlords in Berlin, as well as stuff you love like wealth taxes and all this kind of stuff that you want to lean into. And stuff I really Speaker 3 (6:54) hate though, like the AFD leaning into anti-Ukraine, pro-Russia, very, very weak on NATO. Speaker 2 (7:04) Committed traditionally to leaving NATO, aren't they? And a deep strain of antisemitism. Yeah. Now that was something I really wanted to look at. So incredible young vote for Delinka and something like 45 % of young women voted for Delinka. I was talking to a friend who is a young German woman, plays football in Berlin. Everybody who plays football with her voted for Delinka. And they were mostly driven by Gaza. Because they feel that the German government hasn't represented them on their horror about Gaza. The police have been pretty brutal when they've done demonstrations in favor of Gaza. But there is this very nasty undercurrent, particularly not at the leadership level, but down, down of proper anti-Semitism. Now, the problem there is the Springer group of newspapers is now using this to say the AFD is not the problem. D-Link is the problem. And this is going to be a really. dangerous thing because it will normalize the AFD because they will be presented as the people who aren't anti-Semitic. So I wondered whether actually the time hasn't come for the centrist parties, the equivalent of Labour, the equivalent of Conservatives, the Greens, CDU, SPD, Greens, to come together and say, we're going to exclude Die Linke in Berlin, and we're also going to take the AFD to the Constitutional Court. And maybe the price of that is that the CDU gets the mayorship in Berlin as part of a deal that says, we are against all forms of extremism. We are against the anti-Semitism from Die Linke. We're not going to go into coalition with Die Linke unless they really- Well, Speaker 3 (8:39) that has been their position for some time. So Merz has been clear that he sees the radical populist left probably not as bad as the AFD and certainly not as popular across the country. But they're both, they see them both as needing this firewall. The famous firewall, the Brandt Mauer, this is where the mainstream parties essentially say, we will never go into government with the AFD. And the CDU being clear that they don't want to go into government with the Linker either. So the firewall, once the numbers get bigger and bigger and bigger, if they do, then in a way, the firewall collapses because they get power anyway. The question that Valentine's asking about whether and how you get rid of Mertz. Interestingly, the CDU minister presidents, of which there are a few in the different lender, they came together very, very quickly and said, we're backing him. One exception was Markus Söder, who's the leader of the CSU, their sister party in Bavaria, who probably at some point does fancy his chances of going for the top job. The only one that people seriously talk about as a possible successor is this guy, Hendrik Wüst. W-U with an umlaut. Love a good umlaut. Wust. And he is the Minister President of Nord-Rhein-Westphalia. Now, there's two problems with him. Well, he will be thinking. One is they've got an election in six months' time. He is popular, and he probably thinks he can win that and buck the trend. But, you know, it's going to be tough because all elections are tough at the moment. But so he's probably thinking, why on earth would I want to... take on this basket case politics in Berlin, where this coalition seems not to be working. And Merz, in a way, Merz really is in a tough place, because he's essentially saying, and he's not wrong, we have got to make some very, very serious reforms here. But the Social Democrats Speaker 2 (10:35) are saying, well, yeah, okay, but not those. Well, it's really fascinating, because of course, on the surface, what Merz is saying appeals to sort of centrist Tories like me, because it sounds like it's pro-Britannia. sort out welfare and pensions. We've got to grow the German economy. At another level, it is unbelievably unpopular. I mean, his popularity rating is now down about 14%. I think it's gone lower than that. Because it's unbelievable. And it's a warning for Andy Burnham, actually, in a way, because really, what are the big picture stories? The big picture stories are still international. What do you do about Russia and Ukraine? How do you make sure Germany remains properly integrated into Europe? What are the AFD and D-Linker? They are existential threats to Germany's membership of the European Union and its membership in NATO. I would be thinking that the big narrative that you need to be putting out in Germany for all the centrist parties is we are fighting for the existential future of Europe, NATO, and our own security. Actually, tinkering around with the pensions is fine. But that's not the main message because that will have to be done again for demographic reasons in four or five years' time. And you're never going to win an election on we're Speaker 1 (11:43) going Speaker 2 (11:43) to cut your pensions. The thing is, Merz has been trying to do that. I wonder whether Speaker 3 (11:47) Valentine's questioned about, you know, relating it to Keir Starmer. I wonder how much of this is about communication and a sort of feeling that people have that he's just not quite right somehow. Where's the Carney moment? He does say, he says, one of the best speeches I've seen him make was about Ukraine. And, again, if you talk to the other leaders, including Keir Starmer and Macron, they say on Ukraine Speaker 2 (12:12) he's been great. But should we not see this? Is this not, again, to return to what we did in yesterday's episode, a great opportunity to use the Carney middle power reset to not just rebrand Merz, but make the world a better place? Obviously, yes. Speaker 3 (12:27) My problem, thinking from his perspective, is that going to work? I mean, the AFD is now avowedly, openly saying, you know, Ukraine is a problem. Why are we giving all this money to Ukraine? So lean into it. Have an argument with them. That's exactly the argument he should be having, right? Well, I think he's tried to do that. Why is it not connecting? I just don't know. I think they're in this place where there's a rejection. There's just a rejection of the so-called Uniparty. And they now talk so openly about it. They basically talk about the CDU and Social Democrats as one and the same thing. Both Die Linke on the left and the AFD on the right. Look, he's in a hellish position, absolutely hellish. I mean, to have to cancel his visit to the United Nations General Assembly because he's having to deal with the fallout from this is not a good place to be. The other thing that German people will say to me is that, you know, Wust