January 4, 2024 - 7:00am
Banning major political parties is not something that democracies usually do, but in Germany it is under serious consideration. The target is the Right-wing AfD, which, as the latest polls confirm, is in a strong second place (and far ahead of the government parties).
What’s more, its support is rising to record levels in the former East Germany. It’s now at 37% in Saxony — which elects its regional parliament this year. If the AfD does win big, then excluding it from the Saxon regional government would mean discounting the electorate’s first choice.
However, accepting this mandate would violate the postwar taboo against giving Right-wing parties a share of power — hence the growing push to declare the AfD unconstitutional. After all, the party can’t win an inconveniently large number of votes if it’s not allowed to stand.
It should also be noted that banning the AfD may not even serve its purpose. Eastern Germany is a prime example. Late last year, the Saxony-Anhalt branch of the AfD was classified as extremist by a state intelligence agency, but it did not reverse the party’s advance. Similarly, there was a further warning from the regional election in Bremen, from which the AfD was disqualified. The result was a spike in support for a fringe populist party called “Citizens in Rage” — which leapt from one to 10 seats in the regional parliament.
If the AfD is disqualified nationwide, then don’t expect its voters to return obediently to the mainstream. By playing populist whack-a-mole, the establishment could end up creating a more disciplined — and therefore dangerous — enemy than the often shambolic AfD.
There’s a wider lesson here for establishment politicians across the Western world, which is not to use “lawfare” to defeat the populists.
In America, for instance, the Democrats should think twice before using legal manoeuvres to stop Donald Trump from running for president. If other states follow the example of Colorado and Maine, Trump will portray the attempt to keep him off the ballot as election rigging. He was wrong to make that accusation in 2020; the last thing his opponents should do is make him right in 2024.
In any case — and as in Germany — circumventing democratic norms probably won’t work. For instance, in 2021 the great misinformation scare was used as a pretext to throw Trump off social media — but did that stop him from making a political comeback? It did not.
That’s something that the EU commissioner, Thierry Breton, might like to consider. He’s been busy of late waging Euro-lawfare against Elon Musk’s X, yet his grandstanding only serves to highlight Europe’s failure to build successful tech companies of its own.
Of course, none of this is to give populism a clean bill of health. In some forms, it is indeed a threat to democracy. But the least convincing way to make this point is by editing ballot papers and curbing free speech.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeHow interesting! Have the Germans learnt nothing from the last century?
“Tomorrow belongs to me”.
For all of their cultural and technical prowess, they have a stupid gene and zero common sense.
Ha!
Missing the point that left-wing fas*ists can be just as bad as the right-wing variety.
Duplication due to ‘weird’ censorship!
FAR worse if you do the ‘body count’!
Can there be a right-wing fascism? The Doctrine of Fascism was one of the few contemporary definitions of fascism and it is decidely left-wing with Blairist third-way economics. The authoritarian element of the Doctrine of Fascism is not unique to fascism so the word fascist is not a useful shorthand for authoritarian whether left or right-wing.
Just like they refused to accept that ISIS had anything to do with islam, they refuse to accept the second part of “n##i”
Surely just a misuse of the original Latin ‘Fasces’ by that buffoon Benito Mussolini.
As Charle Stanhope has pointed out the “F-word” political party attracts the attention of the Unherd algorithmic censor, but, as recently tested, references to Stalinist is given a free pass. As Stalinism is the appropriate recognised left wing version of the banned word it might be easier if those of us wishing to draw attention to the totalitarian nature of some person, party or policy stick to using “Stalinist” as after all there is no fundamental difference and it is more acceptable to the algorithm.
Not a bad idea, but the difference between ‘national socialist’ and ‘communist’ is that – at least in theory- the latter is meant to be internationalist
They are worse. They genuinely are fascists, with all the tendencies ranging from thinking only in race terms, government control, curbing free speech etc.
The other interesting point, though, is that the typical muslim illegal immigrants from North Africa or the Mid East, are in fact from a much more bigoted, racist, misogynistic fascist, supremacist culture, all those negatives attributes that are falsely ascribed to ordinary Western “far right” people who merely want to curb illegal immigration.
Ironically, Europe is genuinely becoming more “right wing” by the day thanks to these uninvited guests.
It’s pretty simple. If the mainstream parties don’t want the electorate to vote for ‘right wing populist parties’, then all they have to do is to curb mass immigration (something that the mainstream parties routinely promise but never deliver).
Yes but mainstream parties would be “pandering” to far right parties according to the moronic left wing narrative.
Exactly right David. It is so bleeding simple it drives me mad!
Just say we are going to cap net immigration to x 000s. And that those immigrants will be selected for their abilities and eagerness to integrate.
Then say we are going to deal with labour shortages due to ending unlimited immigration through i) training and education, ii) technological investment and iii) policies that encourage family formation and having children.
Then say this is how we are going to deal with illegal immigrants – viz. lock them up and then deport. And that we will resile from any agreements that stop this happening.
Throw in a bit of pride in our history and culture and some realistic energy policies and the “fringe” parties would fizzle out.
The problem isn’t “mass immigration”.
The problem is illegal, uncontrolled, undocumented immigration of low skill, predominantly male immigrants, from cultures that are the opposite of western countries.
I am an immigrant, and from my experience, it’s absolutely false to claim “right wing” Westerners are bigots or against legal, documented immigration.
Using phrases like “mass immigration” does not fully capture the difference between those two categories of immigrants. I would suggest use the term “illegal immigration”, because a) that’s the crux of the matter and b) prevents “progressives” from obfuscation and twisting your words to make out that “far right”, i.e. ordinary, reasonable people are against immigrant per se or some kind of race purists.
I disagree Samir. I think there are two problems.
The first is mass immigration, i.e. immigration in numbers that the host society’s housing, public services and infrastructure cannot cope with, which depresses working class wages and change the traditional make-up of the culture too dramatically.
There is a second problem with illegal immigration that you identify.
Immigrants should be legal, highly-skilled and in numbers that don’t overwhelm society.
So be fair, if you limit immigration to the criteria that Samir suggests, there wouldn’t be “mass” immigration because there are far fewer immigrants who meet that criteria.
Well said. It’s not right, left or anything else to simply support immigration laws.
No – it’s mass immigration and particularly Muslim immigration. It is a problem of integration
Race purism has nothing to do with it. It’s about the minimum degree of social solidarity and mutual identification
Totally agree
And yet none of these European countries banned their Communist parties during the Cold War … funny that.
I think we should move to ban the labour party
In post colonial coups, the Colonels always went for the Radio Station. Since the 1990s, the Progressive Left in the West have targeted the capture of something bigger – the law. Our common law and sovereignty was overturned in the 90s New Labour/EU Empire Revolution, led by political Human Rights activist Danton-like lawyers like Blair and Starmer. Their Human Rights, Regulatory mania, Supreme Courts and EHRC system have shattered our democracy and introduced an Ultra Judiciary Power above us. British justice has been debauched by them and can no longer be trusted. The virus of ‘Lawfare’ is now out of control as cynical Progressives in Europe US here and beyond abuse the now twisted system to propogate and defend their ugly Progressive cause.
Yep – total oversight that negates pretty much all democratic control. Historically politicians have seemed to be in favour of this. My cynical side says that this means they have no need to address those difficult decisions and can pass off with a “my hands are tied” answer when questioned. Immigration, regulations, control of bad actors. All difficult decisions passed over to those lawyers and not to elected politicians.
Excellent point. Same happened in Eastern Europe following WW2; the communists weren’t voted in and didn’t have massive numbers supporting them. They took control of the courts, police and media first. The rest followed as a result of the control over the former.
Ban the AfD?
You can’t eliminate and destroy an idea.
With so much communication now monitored in a way the Stasi could only dream of, if you can deter people from speaking or writing about an idea even with close family then you have the power to make an idea practically extinct.
Conservative views have largely been eliminated in the mainstream press. That has damaged the credibility of the press, but enough gullible people still believe them to sustain the power of the established parties.
Not a new story, and Germany hasn’t banned them despite having a media debate on the idea for over a year now, and understandably with it’s history having a lower threshold for this sort of thing than most. That’s not likely to change (unless AfD caught more explicitly inciting violence etc)
Best approach is maximum sunlight shone onto them and their ideas. Detailed public scrutiny, questioning and testing, including how much Russian money might be at work.
At same time other politicians need to be aware of which bits of AfD message may be resonating and respond with policies that tackle the concern albeit in a more moderate, but effective way.
I think a big reason why the German citizenry are voting for parties like the AfD is that they feel that they are not being listened to. Parties that were traditionally for the workers seem to have abandoned them in favor of fringe causes like immigration, sex changes and climate alarmism that tie in nicely with ever-increasing government power and overreach.
Yes the problem with populist parties is they want to enact popular policies as opposed to unpopulist parties that don’t want to enact popular policies whether they admit this or not. Funnily enough the enactment of popular policies used to be what the process of democratic elections was all about. Going down the path of Putin and banning or imprisoning your opponents used to be thought to be undemocratic and totalitarian but hey-ho it works so let’s call it democracy and enable unpopulist parties to hang on to power.
Sounds familiar to this Yank.
Germany’s problem is not the AfD. It is the people who want to ban it.
The exclusion of Trump from ballots in blue states is a warning of where this is going.
It’s not just Trump.
“New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell sought to bar 126 members of Congress under the same theory for challenging the (2020) election…” From a New York Post editorial.
Some of the Democrats supporting these measures tried to block certification of Trump’s election in 2016.
Neither Trump nor any of the others has been convicted of anything. A crime is not what this is about.
Managing elections, who gets to run, who gets to be voted for and how, what alternatives are allowed (i.e., none): they want to decide all these things.
One Party to rule them all, one Party to find them, One Party to bring the all, and in the darkness bind them.
Some of the Democrats supporting these measures tried to block certification of Trump’s election in 2016.
It’s different when the left does it. Because reasons.
When the left does anything it’s to save democracy!
I thinks this year’s European Parliament Elections are going to be very interesting across several member states.
Everywhere the Left is showing its authoritarian DNA. Expect more such efforts. It is completely convinced of its own angelic nature and the profound evil of anyone who dares stand against it.
Bring it on
Trying to remove candidates from ballots is not a democratic norm, either, yet here we are. And the action seems driven by the people most loudly proclaiming a devotion to democracy. I’m not sure intentionally disenfranchising citizens is a good strategy.
We must burn down the village to save the village.
Trump wasn’t wrong in 2020. The rigging of elections by the Uniparty has been going on for decades.
Certainly, the changing of a State’s election laws by a judge and not by the State legislature is rigging an election.
Yet another article using the word populist – aka popular – as a pejorative.
While too much immigration is certainly a real problem, a social injustice to the less well off, who bear the brunt of it and cultural folly to everyone else, might the problem be alleviated by not allowing immigrants becoming citizens? Instead they could be foreign residents who were not allowed to bring families over and who had no access to welfare, public housing, schooling or healthcare etc but in return paid no income tax. The point would be to encourage no more than medium term residency, enabling them to make a useful saving and then return home. Any problems?
Any problems…..in Europe the ECHR
Measures carried out by the AfD in office can always be struck down on constitutional grounds, but banning the party itself at this stage would bring about not only a democratic deficit, but also a crisis of legitimacy for the state itself.
Classic. Destroying Democracy to save it. As with taking Donald Trump off the ballot in certain states without a conviction, banning the AfD, by a court or administrative agency staffed by opponents of the Afd, sets the stage for banning of other political parties and politicians based on their views.
Why stop at banning the AfD? Just think, parties and politicians who could be considered racist, Islamophobic, climate denying, or transphobic, could be banned too.
Orwell looks more prescient every day.
Well, these things will always be troublesome for Germany, as well as for the United States and in general for the Western world, as long we uphold the democratistic assumptions of the Divine Right of the People, the Supremacy of the Majority, the Omniscience snd Omnibenevolence of the Proletariat (the “common man”, die einfachen Leute) and the Infallibility of the General Will.
Once these intellectually bankrupt, socially pernicious doctrines are abandoned, then it is not at all out of the question that in order to preserve order promote the common good, that some radicals, dissidents, or other subversive elements and the organizations they form be not only excluded from public life entirely, but also prevented from forming these associations and for spreading their notions among the population.