Another day, another warning that the far-right is on the verge of power in a major European nation.

This time we’re in central/east Germany, where the state of Thuringia has delivered the lion’s share of votes to a far-right party for the first time since Adolf Hitler was on the ballot. The neighbouring state of Saxony came within a hair's breadth of doing the same.

A worrying and depressing development for sure but for followers of this kind of news, it may feel like we’ve heard this one before: European far-right party polls well, they make gains in subnational or EU elections, they seem to have momentum, they then find a hard ceiling of around 10-20% public support in a general election where people are less inclined to cast a protest vote. When they do manage to reach Government (see Italy and the Netherlands), proportional electoral systems mean they must work with other parties and are kept largely in check. 

But Germany feels different. Maybe it's the history, maybe it’s Germany’s central position in Europe, economically, politically and geographically, but the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) enjoying any kind of success seems extra abhorrent and with the federal election just over a year away, what happens next will be critical for Germany, the EU and the UK.

Rightly or wrongly, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has cemented a reputation as a ditherer and looks set to be out of power around this time next year. After securing a quarter of votes at the last federal election, his party (the centre-left SPD) has not polled higher than 20% in the last 12 months and has hovered around 15% throughout 2024. Last weekend, the SPD were almost wiped out in Saxony and Thuringia, coming in fifth with 6-7%. After a brief stint in opposition, Germany's main centre-right party (Angela Merkel's former party, the CDU) are in prime position to regain power, polling nationally at around 32%, but are already looking askance at their right flank and whether the AfD can use the momentum from Saxony and Thuringia to eat into their vote nationally.

The first sign of things going badly wrong will be if the German cordon sanitaire is cut. Across the continent, bitter political rivals have shown they will cooperate to ensure the party of rampant racism and/or dismantling democracy cannot grab the levers of power. The most recent example was France, where the fash were popping corks before their party was comprehensively pooped by a broad coalition of left-wing and centrist parties working together to ensure majority opinion prevailed.

David Cameron, Theresa May and Rishi Sunak all demonstrated extreme folly in attempting to appease or appeal to more extreme elements. In dancing to the tune of Nigel Farage, the UK Conservative Party have self-immolated, taking the UK’s international reputation, opportunities for British people and the UK economy with them. Thankfully, the CDU seems to have been paying attention. Despite troubling balloons floated last year, they have ruled out any coalition with the AfD in Saxony or Thuringia following this most recent election. The test will be if this position survives any narrowing of the polls between now and September 2025.

The results from Thuringia and Saxony should also be noted in Downing Street. Just days after his charm offensive in Berlin, we’ve had the clearest signal yet that Starmer will likely have a new dance partner in the German capital sooner rather than later. There is value in courting individual member states to generate good mood music, but the impending collapse of the Scholz administration underscores the real prize - the formal review of the Brexit deal in 2026 and negotiations with the EU as a whole.

Europhiles in Britain might be dismayed by the Prime Minister’s repeated dismissal of seemingly innocuous and mutually beneficial improvements to the Brexit deal, such as a reciprocal Youth Mobility Scheme or reentering Erasmus+, but he and his team have expressed interest in other areas like a new SPS agreement which should help bring down supermarket costs, alongside other recommendations made last year by the UK Trade and Business Commission. An optimistic analysis is that Starmer is keeping his powder dry and options open for when substantive discussions begin. He has repeatedly claimed that his priority is economic growth, but as important investment in skills and infrastructure will take years to bear fruit, removing the artificial barriers to trade introduced by Brexit is clearly the fastest way of achieving it. 

From their side, the EU has made clear that any revised agreement is contingent on the UK fulfilling the terms of the first one. However, with parties like the AfD advocating complete surrender to Putin and the US election a potential coin toss, they will be keen to bring Britain and its significant military capability back in from the the cold.

We should never downplay or be complacent about the far right. The fight against nativism, racism and authoritarianism is unfortunately unlikely to ever end and will intrude more on our lives when economic times are tough, external threats abound and these absolute chancers spot an opportunity to dupe concerned citizens with, as Starmer himself put it, the snake oil of populism and the "politics of the easy answer". Germany has put a toe across their post-war rubicon.

Time will tell if they intend to cross it.

Niall McGourty
Director of Communications
Best for Britain