February 2, 2024 - 7:00am
The Right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) this week went some way in easing the tensions that have arisen between its leadership and Marine Le Pen of France’s Rassemblement National. Yet it remains clear that while parties on the European Right may share some common ground, they are far from united.
Trouble began with a meeting in Potsdam earlier this month, in which a far-Right Austrian activist called Martin Sellner presented a plan for the expulsion of migrants from Germany, even in cases where they had received citizenship rights. The presence of high-ranking AfD officials at the summit has provoked nationwide demonstrations over the last fortnight, with an estimated 1.5 million people protesting against the party. At the same time, the AfD’s popularity has sunk to a six-month low.
The call for “remigration” also drew condemnation from Le Pen, who has rebuilt the RN since the days of her father’s leadership, when allegations of racism and Nazi apologism surfaced regularly, to the point where it is now France’s most popular party. “We have never advocated for ‘remigration’ in the sense of withdrawing French citizenship from people who have acquired it,” she said last week, adding that there was “strong opposition” between her party and the AfD.
The RN’s shift to the mainstream, steered by Le Pen and party president Jordan Bardella, and its resulting gain in popularity indicate that her family name no longer carries electoral toxicity. Indeed, increasing numbers of French voters now agree that immigration is too high, as the number of arrivals to the country is boosted by workers and incoming students.
While Le Pen has taken her party away from its far-Right origins, the AfD has arguably travelled in the opposite direction. Having begun as a group of economists protesting against Germany’s decision to drop the Deutschmark in favour of the euro, the AfD has gradually become a much more militant organisation. Its parliamentary leader in the state of Thuringia is Björn Höcke, who was sanctioned last year for his use of a slogan popularised by the Nazis. Though his party faction has now been sidelined, around 40% of AfD members identified with it.
Le Pen’s criticism of the AfD’s flirtation with deprivation of citizen rights for those with immigrant backgrounds underscores her belief that the RN’s future is as a national conservative force, free from any taint with fascism or antisemitism. The AfD, increasingly divided, still attracts those whose relationship with neo-Nazi ideas is at least ambiguous.
The AfD claimed this week that Le Pen confused the meaning of “remigration” covered at the Potsdam meeting with the German party’s official definition. It has been compelled to clarify its position, stating that deportation referred to “foreigners who were legally obliged to leave the country” rather than all residents from an ethnic-minority background. AfD representatives are now set to meet with RN officials next Tuesday to address the dispute.
Europe’s New Right parties, forecast to dominate the European elections in June and force change on the liberal foundations of the European Union itself, are not a monolith. Besides their many similarities, they differ in national culture, in leadership style and in elements of their ideologies. Even if the disagreement has been resolved in some small way, Le Pen’s open criticism of the AfD points to her rejection of hard- or far-Right politics, while her German counterparts keep the door open to just such currents. It is an increasingly obvious division within a movement set to define this year’s political shift on the continent.
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SubscribeThe AfD is remarkably dodgy. However, the hysteria over the “remigration” comments was a bit OTT in my opinion.
And I have the say the spectacle of the German government imposing (or talking about imposing, I’m not sure what happened in the end) an immigration ban on Martin Sellner was a perfect irony. This is a country who lets thousands upon thousands of unknown migrants in every single year – many of whom have destroyed their passports on the way. Germany doesn’t know who they are, where exactly they come from, or what kind of security risk they might pose. And yet it goes on.
Sellner (who, by the way seems as vile as anything the Austrian far-right scene has to offer) promptly used the free publicity to rock up to the German border in Passau in a black mini, where the border guards checked his identity…and let him in. It made the German government look like absolute fools. If, after reading Fazi’s article, anyone needs any more reasons why Germany is going down the toilet at the moment, here you are – this is it.
And that brings me to another awesome German word: “Steigbügelhalter“. Literally, it means, the person who holds a stirrup – so that someone else has an easier time mounting the horse. Used in a metaphorical sense when you (often unintentionally) help someone to achieve something they could never have managed alone.
The people going publicly bananas about Sellner and the word “remigration” are giving him the best platform he could ever wish for to spread his nastiness. They are his “Steigbügelhalter“.
One of the characteristics of modern political ‘discourse’ is that if an opponent produces a bent twig the Powers That Be exaggerate the ‘offense’ into a stout branch (or even a whole tree trunk) to beat the ‘offenders’ with.
And sadly most media go along with the drama because death and disaster sells.
The Potsdam meeting discussed “a plan for the expulsion of migrants from Germany, even in cases where they had received citizenship rights”, though only those migrants “legally obliged to leave the country”. Under the 1981 UK Nationality Act, even second-generation immigrants can have UK citizenship removed (remember Shamima “Begum”?) and could, in principle, be deported. Of course, the UK government’s actual policy is not to expel any immigrants, not even a sex offender who has twice had his asylum claim rejected.
The article states that an “estimated 1.5 million people” in Germany protested against the AfD’s association with the Potsdam discussion. There are more than 15 million first-generation immigrants in Germany and who therefore have a horse in this race, so that number of protesters is hardly surprising.
There is something deeply fishy about the reporting of that Potsdam meeting. The reporter wasn’t actually in the room so how could he know what they said, in seemingly great detail.
Yes. It’s week-old cod.
You are right all the reports in the press are extremely dodgy. Already this article is very uninformed. The Potsdam meeting between a couple of people from AfD, CDU and from the Mittelstand already took place in November 2023. An organisation, called Correctiv (funded by tax money and left/green NGOs), consisting of a bunch of left wing journalists and do-gooders, got wind of a private meeting and were eavesdropping with hidden cameras in bushes near the hotel outside Potsdam. But Correctiv was sitting on their “findings”, ready to drop the “bombshell” at a convenient time. Once the farmers and hauling companies protests started in Germany and the AfD was climbing in poll approval ratings, they decided to publish their report. I read it and thought, that is was a total “nothing burger”. I actually laughed at some parts, because it sounded like a badly written and shallow essay. But the whole political class and all of the German MSM exploded and used this report to compare it to the “Wannsee Konferenz”(where the “Final Solution” was decided in 1942) I also listened to an interview with a lawyer, U. Vosgerau (member of the CDU), who was also a participant at this informal meeting, which was far from secretive and served as a discussion about why the government hadn’t started to deport illegal migrants and asylum seekers as promised, not much different from a daily report by Nigel Farage on GB news. Sellner’s book was discussed, where he proposes to build towns in Northern Africa to “remigrate”rejected asylum seekers. There was also talk, how to deport criminal gang members and Islamists, who might have dual citizenship. But the Press and the State owned TV stations blew up this report, declared it unconstitutional and every day added more outrageous made up stories, which were never discussed at the actual meeting.
Even the German President thundered against the right wing menace.
I want to assess the AfD but can’t. I don’t know what really happened at Postdam but I do know reasonably effective anti-establishment movements are routinely framed as dangerously right wing. How to know when it’s true, as it must sometimes be? I used to automatically trust the BBC. Those happy days are gone now and I deeply resent the self-righteous idiots who have wrecked that vital public service.
“There are more than 15 million first-generation immigrants in Germany …”
That’s an astonishing figure. Presumably a consequence of Frau Merkel’s admission of foreigners into her country.
“We have never advocated for ‘remigration’ in the sense of withdrawing French citizenship from people who have acquired it”
Citizenship is intended to carry with it obligations, not just rights to healthcare, housing etc. FN will likely fail and be replaced if voters see it as co-opted by the establishment and unwilling to strip citizenship from and deport those unwilling to integrate into the French Republic. For many Frenchmen, the banlieus contain a number of net burden acid-attackers who would not be missed. Expect a new right wing party to form. I expect the same for Italy after supposed fascists became naked EU lapdogs.
At the Potsdam meeting nobody proposed to withdraw citizenship from law abiding people with a migrant background. This is a badly informed article. The meeting was mostly about how to deport asylum seekers/illegal migrants. There was a suggestion, that it was right to withdraw German citizenship from people, who were violent Islamists or clan members, if they had dual citizenship.
The greatest tragedy in all this is that the people most hurt by the open borders policies mandated by European elites – the non- graduate young – are often apolitical and tend not to vote. So their situation can be safely ignored – until the inevitable rise of a demagogue able to organise them.
You mean the non-graduate young in rich western european nations. The EU has been brilliant for hard-working youngsters from poorer nations.
If you’re out-competed by a lesser educated immigrant who barely speaks the language then the immigrant is not the problem. Not voting is just another facet of that.
But to your point, the young generally are outnumbered as a voting block (e.g. UK median voting age is about 50 – that’s people who are actually able to vote) so it’s no wonder they’ve given up on voting.
“If you’re out-competed by a lesser educated immigrant who barely speaks the language then the immigrant is not the problem”
Of course, some undocumented deliveroo rider that will work 14 hours for 3 quid an hour is and will be more competitive than a Brit. What’s the question here? They aren’t competing for the same jobs, you dork!
so how then is it that the non-graduate young are harmed by open immigration as OP suggests?
Sounds like they’re getting cheap takeaway food purchased with the proceeds of their productive western European jobs for which they were educated in your imagining. Win win.
Calling your political opponents ‘just too stupid’ is certainly one way of doing it. It didn’t work so well for Hillary Clinton, though, did it?
And while it may be true that natives of lower IQ are more at risk from immigration, the Nation is as much theirs as it is the elite’s who benefit from even cheaper manual labour to clean their swimming pools and empty their rubbish bins.
To a point.
You certainly can’t blame the hard-working young/ish Eastern Europeans for taking the opportunity so well.
However, we aren’t really comparing like with like here. It’s precisely the better educated, more ambitious Eastern Europeans who come here. You don’t see the less adventurous ones who stayed at home.
There’s also a fair amount of corner cutting amongst some of the immigrants which reduces their living and employment costs below the norm.
But they have taught us a valuable lesson. Note that the welfare states in the countries they come from are far less generous and accomodating.
In 1997, when Blair came to power, it would not have been unreasonable for any young fork-lift driver or paramedic to aspire to owning a home and enjoying sufficient job and financial security to contemplate starting a family. By 2010 that was all gone.
Meanwhile how much unearned property wealth did you accumulate during the same period. Half a million? A million? More? All of which will be passed on to your kids, if you have any. thereby widening the class divide still further.
I think your post illustrates perfectly the abdication of social solidarity in the rent-seeking class that Christopher Lasch pinpointed in The Revolt of the Elites. You should read it.
Also badly hurt are the young graduates who want to buy a home within commuting distance of the big cities and find that immigration has led to them being priced out. In their case, they are not apolitical but actively – often radically -in favour of increased immigration! Thus pi**ing on their own chips.
The answer to demand is supply.
They are priced out more by landlords charging >1/3 of the typical graduate income (pre-tax!) per year.
+ QE which healthily benefited the Brexit generation boosting asset prices without creating growth. QE itself only being required because of small state no-fiscal-policy governments supported by the anti-immigration generation.
What “small state” government was that ? I wish … . Taxes and government spending are higher than ever.
But yes, QE is nothing more than fake growth. But so’s mass immigration. It’s actually dragged productivity down. We’ve chosen to go for quantity over quality. But that’s government for you.
What is this fallacy that landlords dictate rental prices ? They can only charge what the market will stand. Increasing interest rates will only push up rents to a point where people start making different decisions.
“Yet it remains clear that while parties on the European Right may share some common ground, they are far from united.”
Yet it remains (Remains?) clear that some people expect pan European consistency of political thought.
Good point! John Lloyd makes the implicit assumption that different European countries’ right-of-centre political parties have to align their policies. I cannot understand this. After the Euro elections in June, they may have to cooperate through the Identity and Democracy Group in the European Parliament, but that group does not seek to homogenize policies.
Exactly. The whole point of the movement is to restore more national sovereignty, indeed allowing these very differences to thrive.
I know. I made the same comment. Why should they be united ?
I would be loathe to comment on the situation in Germany but it has ocurred to me, for some time now, that Repatriation is the inevitable end point of a lot of fond, foolish, unexamined ideas on the right. The refusal to admit this accounts for the barren, plaintive, self pitying savour which adheres to Scrutonian conservatism and leaves it ‘bound in shallows and in miseries’.
Sad old Enoch, ever a willing prisoner of his own iron logic, got there in the end. So does everyone that affects to lament the changes in this land. We don’t like to concede the point, but the expulsion and persecution of perceived ‘foreigners’ has played a powerful role in our Island Story. From St Brice’s Day in 1002 to Evil May Day in 1517. The Elizabethan expulsion of ‘Blackamoors’ to the Aliens Act of 1902 and onwards.
If you can wear it then at least I can assent to your consistency but If one is revolted at the prospect (as I am) or will not admit to it’s being the end-point then all that remains is to make a just and fruitful peace with the new post-imperial settlement.
It’s Mr Powell to you.
The Aliens Act didnt expel anybody! Before 1906 there was free entry into Britain, and passports were uncommon. I am interested in seeing more about the Elizabethan Act to expel the Blackamoors. Maybe they were captured Muslem pirates/ slavers.
Careful, Unherd. This is a dangerously misleading article.
“adding that there was “strong opposition” between her party and the AfD” this comes from a paraphrased reference in the linked Euractiv article.
In Brussels’ circles, Euractiv is known as a joke publication. Any credible journalist quoting them should know to look for the source transcript and see what Le Pen actually said.
That’s because Le Pen, and anyone paying attention, knows that the Potsdam meeting was a highly dubious pretext to discredit the AfD. It was not a party event, nor did it express the views of the party or its chairperson Alice Weidel.
Finally, anyone paying attention also knows that German citizens of migrant descent are not the problem in Germany, a country in which droit du sol has not (yet) been established.
AfD’s beef is with the post-2015 ‘Wir schaffen das’ arrivals, none of whom are German citizens.
One small addendum to your warning about this piece,
“Björn Höcke … was sanctioned last year for his use of a slogan popularised by the Nazis.”
The phrase that earned the sanction was “Everything for Germany!” which should have informed the author that the “sanction” was bogus.
Yeah, Im waiing for the quotes from the 1930s.
The reckless lies and propaganda of the German government seem to work splendidly even with the RN.
But why do these parties need to be united in the first place ? One’s German, the other’s French. Germany and France don’t have identical cultures, peoples or challenges so why shouldn’t they accomodate their actual voters ?
I thought we were supposed to be mature democracies in Europe where parties are free to propose whatever policies they like (however crazy) and people free to vote for them. I’m really not keen on this tendency towards “thought policing” and talk of banning them. The mainstream parties should up their game and listen to the voters if they’re worried about losing support.
Going back a little towards the main topic. I do wonder what the “official EU position” actually is on illegal migration. If we accept that it is in fact illegal (as I assume it is in most if not all countries), how can it then be unacceptable to take necessary remedial action ? Or is the position – in time-honoured EU style – to ignore inconvenient problems (like the debt crisis – or indeed widespread lawbreaking by MEPs reported today) and hope they go away ?
You can almost hear the desperate thought processes of the liberal media at this point. They’re used to a world in which associating a party with fascism or Nazism was enough to discredit the party. For a long time, just calling people racists and xenophobes was enough to shame them into voting for the same old globalist stooges.
Unfortunately for them, that isn’t working anymore and it’s becoming increasingly apparent that they have no Plan B. They moved on to repeating the same accusations only louder, angrier, and with more urgency, as if a judgemental tone and a sense of outrage will inspire more people to take them seriously. Shockingly that only made things worse for them.
Now they’re just in denial trying to convince themselves that the people aren’t rejecting their ideology when any serious person can see that’s exactly what’s happening. They’re so far into denial they’re trying to convince themselves Le Pen isn’t so bad. She only wants to deport the immigrants who aren’t citizens. That’s not so bad but we’ll draw the line in the sand at that point. Definitely seems like the goalposts are moving pretty quickly these days. I can’t imagine any media writer caring about such technicalities a few years back when Le Pen was public enemy number one of the globalist crowd and it was outrageous to even suggest limiting immigration, let alone deporting anybody. The times they are a changin.
What was the slogan, I wonder. Reminds me of the Mail, always claiming perfectly common gestures were Nazi. Yet actual Nazi runes sported by Ukrainian troops , no they dont count.