When Marine Le Pen failed to win the French presidency, the elites of Europe hailed “populism” dead in its tracks. They do not like to mention the 11 million votes, 35 percent, she received. They quietly erase the inconvenient truth that she is the opposition in France, that Geert Wilders of the PVV is the official opposition in The Netherlands, and the Italian Lega Nord, and Austria’s Party for Freedom could all be in government in the next few months.
Last month in the European Parliament, the leader of Angela Merkel’s CDU, Manfred Weber, gloated that populism was dead. And then the Alternative for Germany (AfD) won 90 seats in Sunday’s election. From nowhere, founded in 2013, they have catapulted into power.
Europe’s mainstream media and opposition are furious. The AfD are being called Nazis, extreme right-wing, and accused of having some very unpalatable people and supporters. It’s the entitled throwing their toys out of the pram. Everyone in Germany has a past, linked to their very dark past, and they above all in Europe, have more shame than anyone else and are quick to try to make amends.
They also use it to their political advantage. One of the AfD’s senior members, MEP Beatrix Von Storch, has an unfortunate family tie on her mother’s side — she is the great grand-daughter of Hitler’s finance minister. So do many more millions of Germans who also have Nazi family history.
Why is this relevant? The party was formed in 2013 by conservative intellectuals to oppose the Eurozone bailout of Greece but quickly took up a conservative line, abandoned by Merkel. They campaigned for those that believe in traditional family values, they believe that their culture and identity has to be preserved over the 5 million-strong Muslim population (which is growing rapidly) and they are against open-door immigration — dressed up by Merkel as opening Germany’s kind and friendly doors to one million “refugees” when the majority are young, economic migrant men.
The AfD’s stronghold is in the former communist East Germany (Merkel’s home). In 2016, they beat Merkel’s party into second place in her home state by taking 20.8 percent of the vote. On Sunday, they took 30 percent of the vote in Saxony, narrowly missing victory over Merkel.
Polls show that 89 percent of AfD voters thought that Merkel’s immigration policies ignored the “concerns of the people,” 85 percent want stronger national borders, and 82 percent think that 12 years of Merkel is enough. And the socialists, under the odious former president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, fared even worse with just 20 percent of the vote.
The AfD quickly established conservative policies and proposed slashing taxes, removing the inheritance tax altogether, ending the television license fee tax, abolishing state-funded TV broadcasters, and politics to support only families made up of fathers, mothers, and children.
However, life in politics does not run smoothly. Already there are cracks in the AfD leadership, with my friend and joint leader, Frauke Petry, taking her seat in the Bundestag but sitting as an independent. Like Nigel Farage’s UKIP, AfD is not immune to infighting.
I have a number of views on why this is so. I think it is the urgency of wanting to take back control of your country when you see it sinking under social democratic and socialist leaders.
It is brave to leave a party you may have joined in your youth to fight for what you believe in. Like me, those people are generally fighters who do not conform to the norm and do not take kindly to the silencing of their real conservative views. And Merkel and David Cameron wonder why they lost. It is the failure of conservatives to make the case for conservatism.
To appeal across the board, they disdain the values of the family, our right to our culture and identity and our way of life. That is why Britain chose Brexit.
The AfD, along with their sister parties, are accused of racism. What is racist about controlling your borders, ejecting failed asylum seekers, and wanting to know who is entering your country? Other countries are seeing the same revolt of the people. Merkel, Macron, and the EU are stamping their authority by telling other states that they have to take migrant quotas.
If they do not, then they will be punished. In Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and others, they are refusing to take Muslim migrants. The EU is responding by imposing billions of euro fines and the people respond by voting in conservative governments.
I wish the AfD every success, and I look forward to Austria’s elections next month and Italy’s early next year when Hans Christian Strache and Matteo Salvini will be the next saviors of Europe.
Janice Atkinson is an independent member of the European Parliament, representing South East England.
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