B-Side: German lessons

0:00Have you noticed that our caps have actually got little pictures of skulls on them? Erm, I don't. And are we the baddies? Well of course we are the baddies. What we're doing is completely just. We're fighting for the future of Germany against the communists and the decadent western powers who betrayed us at the site. Yeah, that does sound just. Of course. I'm just increasingly uncomfortable about our place in the narrative structure of this war. Quiet, quiet. Welcome to Quiet Ride, beside our chance to flip the record over and delve a little deeper into a track what doesn't always get the place it deserves. I'm Alex. And I'm Naomi, tapping my foot to the rhythm of Alex's beat. Mmm, and I'm Kenny, the backing vocalist, demanding royalties guys. Soup, soup. Now, yesterday... Now yesterday we looked at our very own homegrown Fash.

1:00Today we're heading across to the continent to see how they propagate them in Germany. Germany is a federation of several states, each with its own parliament, a land tag. This month, three such states are having their land tag elections. The first of those was the formerly East German stage of Saxon Unhalt, just to the west of Berlin. Now, suffolage is expected that the German far-right party, Alternatifür, Führdeutschland, would do well, but it did quite a bit better than even expectations. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Although still short of what it needs to govern without other parties' cooperation, now what is more notable is the collapse of the centre-right Christian democrats who pulled at 17% in a state which they have governed for decades,

2:01in a rare intervention former chancellor Angela Merkel said, My heart bleeds for what has happened to my country. On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands took part in stock the AFD march is taking place up and down Germany in most major cities. Earlier in the week, Alex unpacked the implications with our resident expert on all things Bundestag and their subs. Let's have a listen. Welcome back to Quiet Riot, Annette. Hello, thanks for having me. LAUGHTER Can we start with some very brief basics on the German constitutional setup and the German political landscape? So first of all, the state election that just happened, Saxon Unhalt, is a small region with a small population. Yes. But because of Germany's federal setup, the consequences of the AFD potentially taking power in the state parliament are really huge for people who live there. Absolutely, yeah.

3:03Because those state parliaments have more power even than Holyrood or the Seneth. So in a weird way, it's easy to both overestimate the effect by projecting it onto a much larger map and underestimate the AFD. Yes, I mean, the federal setup of Germany makes these federal, even the small state much more powerful than you would think. Nevertheless, it is limited what they can do. But one big problem, for example, if potentially the AFD would form a government now, whichever way, I mean, it's a bit unclear at the moment, but if they would be able to form a government, they would send their interior minister to Berlin, the clearly pro-Russian party. For example, when you have meetings of the interior ministers in Berlin on defence, security, foreign intelligence, I mean, this is all being heavily disturbed from now on, because you cannot be sure whether the AFD will not directly send all these informations to the Kremlin, as they are clearly siding with Putin and the elite candidate,

4:06Ulrich Sigmund, has been making that very clear throughout the campaign, that they do not want to support Ukraine anymore. And I think from an international level, that's the most dangerous thing. Apart from that, symbolic keeps psychologically this upiless has massive repercussions throughout all of Germany and also within Europe, because this is more than just a symbolic win. And this is the first major breakthrough of a far-right, extremist party, which it is officially declared by the domestic intelligence, German. Do I remember correctly that a year ago, there was an investigation going on actually by the security services on whether precisely members of the AFD at the Bundestag level who were getting security briefings were leaking things to the Kremlin? Yes. Am I making that up or did that actually happen? No, no, no, this did happen. I do not know how this ended in the end, but it's pretty clear and completely about, basically, that especially the more extreme party association of the AFD

5:06and Saxony, and one of the most extremist ones, have very, very close links to Russia. One of the big guys behind Ulrich Sigmund, who sort of the charismatic, happy face of something way more sinister than radical behind him. One of the top peoples behind him, till Schneider, sort of the ideological brain of the AFD in Saxony, and I was interviewed by a German reporter who then discovered a mark behind him from the Russian army, not even just a souvenir from Moscow, but I mean a mark with the writing of the Russian army, when he sort of pointed to that, that German reporter, till he said, hey, city, try to hide it and said, it's not a big deal. But this is who they are. There's plenty of pictures of AFD and peace and party members in Moscow. They have been seeing waving the Moscow flag, this same guy with the mark of the Russian army, has been standing at the party campaign, even saying Moscow is not our enemy, the West is our enemy. I mean, this is sort of from an international point,

6:08I think, the most dangerous aspect of this whole election. Yeah, part of what was interesting about this is that we saw internationally who welcomed the election, and it was Trump reposted a screen grab of the result, Musk congratulated them and the Russian envoy in the trade negotiations, congrats. Oh, yes, Dimitriyev. So it's in fairly plain sight, I guess. Dimitriyev, this Russian trade envoy from Putin's trade envoy, has been quite clear before that. I mean, he has been posting something a few days ago that on 6th of September, Germany will awake. I mean, that is sort of Nazi slogan he's been working with. So they know what they're doing. I mean, and it's really quite telling that it was Musk, Trump and the Russians and China who has been congratulating the AFD. I mean, this is a small state, it's really weird what's happening here, because they're clearly trying to instigate a much bigger rise of the AFD that just started yesterday. A couple of years ago, we discussed,

7:10I think, the result in Turingia, another state, which is one of the first places where the AFD got a sort of foot on. And I remember you're telling me that British audience needs to understand, first of all, that the AFD is not reform UK in a German context. It is way way to the right of reform UK, even in its current very hard right state. Even Marine Le Pen cut ties with him a couple of years ago, the European Parliament, because she thought they were too far right. Absolutely. Even for her party. And the other thing that you had said to me is that these, the leadership in this eastern states of the AFD are even to the right within the AFD. Yes. So they are the most extreme bits, even within that party? Absolutely. I mean, there are other party associations in West Germany that are not as extremists, and that also haven't been declared by domestic intelligence as extremist anti-democratic parties, but the one in Saxony. Unhaw is the one yesterday.

8:10Certainly is one of the most extremist ones. They're clearly and openly, that's what the domestic intelligence said, that's not me making it up. They are anti-democratic. They're racist. They have in their manifesto when you read that. And I've done that, yes, that they're waiting for the results. I mean, the language is really worrying. They talk about the attempts to work through our, I mean, the German past the Nazi time, which has been worked on a lot throughout the times, the decades after the Second World War, especially in West Germany. They call this kind of, we call it, for ganghenheids bevelting. They call that in their manifesto. The left wing perverted agitation of the past, this guilt complex has to be stopped. Or as another election event, somebody, one of the bigger figures in the AFD said, the state is adoked up, left wing hall, that has to be abolished and destroyed. I mean, it's a very violent language they have been using. They have been neo-Nazi groups at these events,

9:12who've been openly welcomed Ulrich Siegmund, that's the name of the leader of the elite candidate with Siegmund, Siegmund, which is a Nazi parole, Sieg Heil. And Ulrich Siegmund, who always pretended to be the innocent, happy face of this whole campaign successfully, didn't say anything, he smiled. And he has never distanced himself from the very, very extreme radical people behind him who partly are neo-Nazis and are behaving like neo-Nazi groups. He's an interesting persona in all this, I think. Because to look at him and look at his TikTok videos, you know, he has a huge volume of TikTok. Almost a million, which is a lot for such a small state. And it is estimated that he brought out as many as 150,000 primarily young people who haven't voted before into this election. That was one of the best of his success. And to look at that communication slate of his, I mean, he looks like a preppy, he rides a mobert,

10:14and an old GDR mobert. It's not just some mobert. I mean, that's sort of fueling this nostalgic GDR of everything was better before sentiment, that they have been very successful in building on as well. Can you explain that to me a little bit, Anita, because it's quite counterintuitive that a part of the country that really suffered under a very authoritarian regime for decades should sort of long to get that back. Has there been any analysis on how that psychology works? It's not exactly that they wanted GDR back as it was, but the AFD has been fueling several layers of kind of subconscious unhappiness that have that sort of ruling these. I mean, A, they always felt and partly rightly so, that they were sort of taken over by the West after 89, which is a big debate, by the way, at the moment in Germany, because there were even articles now

11:16that the West Germans have enough of having financed the reunification, and now these guys want to go back to GDR. So partly there is a disgruntlement that the rich West has basically taken over East Germany, and that has easily exploited this nostalgia. That is not directly people who want GDR back, or Russia back, or whatever. It's people who long for easier times. It's like everything was more easy, and it was not as chaotic and complex, and in a way things were more orderly. Yes. You have that same longing in the West, just that in the East, I mean, the AFD has really successfully fueled that by singing the old GDR national hymn on these meetings, and people just felt this was a cosier, easier time, which it wasn't up to sleep. But this sort of stream of, of, yeah, nostalgia has been used really well. Did you call it ost-al-gier? Yes, ost-al-gier. Ost-al-gier, that's the area. So East, longing for the East, that brilliant, brilliant term, I hadn't heard that.

12:19The ost-al-gier, I mean, East Germany has been suffering from that for a while. I mean, that's why it's a proper term in German, ost-al-gier. And that's something that can be easily exploited, especially as, as I said, today's times. I mean, this is a small rural state, sexy on the unheard. People are struggling. I mean, cos of living is a big issue there. So it's easy to exploit it and say, listen, it was so much better then. And then what Seekman has done, the lead candidate of the AAC, which I found really interesting is to combine that, not with being disgruntled, but he wore sort of this happy face who's been optimistic throughout the campaign, funny, charismatic, and former perfume salesman, and has been able to mobilize people who are longing for a tribe, for community, and their slogan, which I thought was extremely clever, was Alice is Murgleich, which means in English, everything is possible. Let's build a new country that is like the old,

13:20more peaceful country. And then they top that with posters at the end of the campaign that said, all will be well. So it was a very diffuse campaign that was sort of singilligning optimism and hope. We can do that. We can build a new Germany that is really German, white, and no immigrants and just us. Yeah, it sounds like a sort of fascist lullaby, almost. Yes, that's what they did. Don't worry now. You won't have to make decisions anymore. Exactly. I mean, Seekman was really the perfect candidate for the AAC. The first time they have somebody like him, I think he's one of the rising stars nationally, as well now, because he built it on personal charm and friendly evasiveness when product on policy questions. He always evaded any kind of concrete question. And that sort of, yes, was lulling people, mulling into some kind of co-signus and the weird kind of hope without giving away

14:21the language that you could just easily read into the manifesto and the way more violent and racist and anti-democratic principles he's completely committed to. But he would never, I mean, he did never use that language or these topics throughout the whole campaign. Quiet, quiet. Quiet, quiet. Let's have a little listen to Friedrich Meertz, the German Chancellor's reaction, the morning of Monday, when he came out to give a press conference. We are just looking at who congratulated the winners that shows how much attention this result is getting international. With almost 60% of the voters in one German state with a high tone around, vote for the political parties,

15:25which profoundly question the democratic rules of our country. Well, that's an election result, which doesn't make it possible to continue with business as usual and we don't. It has an impact on us, even on myself personally. And I also have to accept that this is the worst electoral defeat that the CDU has suffered in years, if not decades. Of course, consequences have to be made. Obviously, they will have to be consequences. And he looked and sounded shell shocked. Why is that? Was the result unexpected? Or was it just the size of the result that was so shocking? I mean, the result is an absolutely catastrophe for the German conservatives. And especially for Meertz. He came in only a year ago with a promise he would half the vote share of the AFD.

16:25They were at 20% by then. And what doubled the CDU's vote share, what he has done, he has half his own vote share. The opposite. And doubled the AFD's vote share. And I mean, it was widely expected that the AFD would gain a big majority. But 44% that exceeded even their own expectations. And on the other hand, 17% for the Christian conservatives, for Meertz's party, is way below 20%, which was the lowest they thought they could fall. So the result is much more extreme than they had expected. And it's a massive failure of Meertz. Listen to this speech when he came out to talk to the press. I mean, he looked shell shocked, depressed. And what I found even worse, at a complete loss somehow, he felt like, it was almost like, have you not prepared for this possibility? It was like helpless somehow. I just thought Jesus Christ. How many times have we had you on the show, Annette, saying that, emphasizing their talking points, always allowing the AFD to set the agenda

17:30and trying to be tough on him, you know, it will have the opposite effect. Exactly. They seem surprised that this has come to pass. I mean, he seemed to me like someone who would have resigned, but for the other couple of state elections coming up. Yes. Is that neo-verreading it? I mean, he looked on his way out. I cannot see him surviving this in the long term. But there is no way he can do that now. I mean, what he did try this morning was that he tried to calm the atmosphere, sort of, to Susan the waves. I mean, because there is this two other important state elections in only two weeks' time. So he needs to try to calm the situation and to stumble on and soldier on at least until mid-September, until these two elections, one of them is another East German state election. If he failed, if his party goes under there as they did yesterday, I cannot see him in the long term, remaining in his post or finishing his term.

18:30But he will try everything to, and he stopped short of standing down, and you could see he was ready for it. I felt I had the same impression, but he won't do it now, and it will take a while, maybe. But it's a catastrophic result for him. And he seems to have no idea what to do. It was a completely helpless out of his death speech. Yeah, what he said was, basically, we have to communicate better. We have to take people on board. We have to reach them emotionally. Yeah, why hasn't he done it yet? And he didn't give away any kind of strategy how he wants to deal with it now. And that is the scary part, because I think with him as Chancellor, this was only good. It's fascinating that in preparing, I looked at our conversation from two years ago on the result in Turingia. And that was before he had been elected. And the effect that it had was that basically all the other parties had collapsed.

19:30And people had rallied behind the, said they knew the Christian Democrats, the center right party sent for a Christian audience. Yes. They had rallied behind them as the people most likely to stop the AFD. That's what he promised. And now that he's in government, he has joined everyone else who has collapsed. But no one else seems to have emerged as the alternative to the alternative, you know, you mean party wise or in his party? Party wise, party wise. I see no one saying we are the people that could stop them if you want to vote strategically, vote for us. Everyone else is around the same region of percentages. Yes, I mean, the problem is that Merz has governed with the Social Democrats, so they have formed a grand coalition. And there was a grand coalition before that. I mean, Germany has basically been governed by grand coalitions for ages now. So that is this feeling that the mainstream centrist Democratic Party just can't do it.

20:32That has been exploited and fueled by the AFD because in reality, I mean, especially when you look at Germany in comparison to Britain, I mean, it's not doing very badly, also the East German States. I mean, yes, there is a cost of living crisis, but nothing compared to here. And it is not factual. I think that's the reason why the, let's say, normal centrist Democratic Party don't know how to turn this around. Because it is about an emotion vibes. It also, and we should not forget that has been fueled and fermented largely by Putin and Marga online. I mean, there has been, there is, there is people who say, now we need to have an investigation into that. There have been so many attempts by a social media to, to meddle in this, in this election. Absolutely sure that this has had a massive influence, especially as Marga, mask and, and Russia has, have, have ganged up against nerds in this investigation. Yeah, most hinted at that. He didn't say directly. Yes.

21:32We have to look at foreign influence. Yes. And you know who I mean. Yes. Which against him a bit undecided. A bit undecided. I just strange reference. You know, either say it or don't say it like that. But that's exactly the problem, Alex. That's exactly the one. We always stop in the middle and doesn't make it clear. This doesn't give people a clear perspective or a clear direction. I mean, after this election yesterday, where party has clearly won that is against support for Ukraine and support Putin, he should have just stood up and said, listen, this is not an option. And then be very clear about that. Yeah. That it's not just money that we waste and don't give to our own people, but that Russia wants to attack Germany. And he doesn't dare saying that. So he stops short of clear announcements. And that's his problem since he became chancellor. It's a little bit like with Starma. He seems got to know where to go and how to do that. And it's unable to communicate that in a way that people trust him. Yeah.

22:32I got the sense that he shares that lack of being able to narrate the story of where he is going. So that people understand it. And getting into the nitty-gritty now, the practicalities of this result, they don't have enough. Yes. They don't have enough for an outright majority. No. The cordon sanitaire, if you want, has so far held up with other parties saying they won't do a deal at a kind of leadership level, although there are noises off from individual state, parliament MPs, saying maybe we should be working together. And this notion that the percentage of the majority they've won is so big that it feels a little bit undemocratic, not to allow them to govern in a way. Which is obviously an answer. Which is obviously an answer. Because the system is like you have to get over. It's not first pass the post. No, what we have. This is a proportional representation. And that means that the party who can rally the majority of MPs behind it is the one who should govern not the strongest one.

23:39Yeah, the second prize is basically compromise. You cannot not be a majority and get to implement your whole program, which is what he has said he wants to do. So I find it interesting that on that, there seems to be some disagreement between the party locally and the party nationally. I've seen a little bit of fractious communications with him saying, if I can't govern, then we go back to election, I want a majority. The party nationally saying that you should try governing as a minority government and just get people to vote or not vote for specific things issue by issue. What's going on there? I mean, it's a bit tricky because it's a fast moving landscape there at the moment, but it's true that Ali's vital one of the two party leaders nationally said we should govern now. We are the strongest party while Zeke Mondelid candidate in Saxony. And the unheard has always said that he would only govern. He said if he has an outright absolute majority and even said he wants to a three more and otherwise he wouldn't be sure whether he wants to do it.

24:42This is obviously also a strategy that you do throughout a campaign. I think he will stick to not forming a coalition, not doing any compromises and hope at the moment because it feels as if within the party, those who want to govern are getting the upper hand at the moment. From listening to interviews, I heard this morning in German radio. So I think he might try to get people from the city who will defect to AFD. I mean, that is perfect impossible. There have been noises that individual MPs from the Christian Democrats are ready like a jet doing a gender. Listening to one interview he gave this morning Zeke Mondelid candidate of Saxony. He said I'm reaching out to parties and individuals. So there was a clear sign that he's trying to get people over to his party. If that doesn't work, he still has a second option.

25:44He could form a minority government that is tolerated by the business, Sarah Wagenknächt, which is a very very strange party. Yes, hard stream left. Sarah Wagenknächt, our favorite enigma. I see British media are still calling her far left, which is just serious. It's a tricky one because I mean, she's basically a pro-Russian populist outfit that split from the hard left delinquent some years ago, but coming from the famous horse shoe theory. I mean, she has, she's the only party who has offered to cooperate, I mean, to ignore the Kaurdonsanitex, the firewall. She's the only party who has said, let's cooperate because she is, I mean, on a social economic level, they do have left-wing ideas, but overall she's mostly a pro-Putin. And I would say anti-democratic right, hard-fowered. Anti-immigration. I mean, it's a strange one. Exactly. And clearly pro-Putin. I mean, she's really a strange person.

26:47And they have five elected positions in this. So added to his would make a majority plus one, wouldn't it? Yes, I mean, they would probably not form a coalition, but Wagenknächt has more or less announced that they might tolerate a minority government. I mean, that is also very unstable thing, but what is also scary again, I mean, Sarah Wagenknächt is a clearly pro-Putin figure. And then you have two parties who basically supporting Moscow, governing a state. I mean, and even if it's a small state, as we mentioned at the start of our discussion, they do have quite some influence in Berlin. Yeah, yeah, it has input. It has input, and that's the most... you have basically the enemy within now. And Russia sort of getting potentially access to all kinds of things they should never be able to get access to. Quiet, quiet.

27:47We talked about a sort of bizarre resentment going east to west, but psychologically, what does this do to west Germans who have spent a lifetime educating younger generations about the trauma of World War II and saying never again, you know, I've spoken to German Jewish friends, Wagenknächt, just in bits, in scared about what's going on. Is there a danger that a wave now grows of resentment going west to east saying, why did we let these people in? They are culturally too far from us. I mean, what clearly, what became very clear throughout this campaign is that reunification, I mean, the German reunification is far from having been successfully finished. Because the differences between east and west were suddenly breaking up as if we were standing in 1989 or 1990.

28:47It's quite interesting in a way. I mean, there were lead articles and big German papers saying, we, the West, have enough. We've paid so much for you. So basically put the wall up again, which I found really not helpful at all. And also, I think it's very, very important to keep in mind that the AFT's also really strong in the West. This is not a uniquely East German phenomenon. But it is a lot more pronounced in former East German. It is a bit stronger there, but if you look at some West German states, I mean, they're quite close to these results. I would really warn everyone because that's partly how this new division between east and west grew again by, by West East, by the West German saying, oh, this is an East German thing. The Easties have never done anything, which is way too easy. I mean, it's factually correct that in the East and East German states, the AFT has been able to exploit and fuel a very specific kind of resentment of East Germans, who still are disgruntled and are happy how they have been treated by the West after reunification.

29:51Because the West has taken over a lot in their views. I mean, West would also say we have paid around for you guys, but that's not entirely true, because West German companies have also really made big, huge gains from investing in East Germany. There has been a big chunk of people who left East Germany and worked in the West and were really precious labor force and helped again. So it's not that easy. But it's also true to say that the standard of living in East Germany has showed up to an extent that is not reflected in what you hear from people. Because it's, again, it's about emotions. It's not about facts. I mean, Sex and the Unheld has the lowest share of immigrants in all of Germany, I think. I mean, maybe one of the lowest. The standard of living, I've just been in Germany quite a lot because I was on a book tour over the last three months. And I was really astonished, especially in the East, how good everything looks. I mean, everything is renovated. It looks much better than in the West Party. And most people I talked to, that was quite surprising. I said, I'm doing well, but overall we don't feel good.

30:58So it's not that people are really completely impoverished. I mean, it's not like parts of Glasgow or parts of Cornwall or part of the Midlands where you really have poverty to a degree that is scary. That is not the case in Germany to that extent. Yes, people have become poor, people are struggling, but it doesn't justify the kind of feeling that the AFD has been able to spread. And that's interesting. And that's why it's also so hard to beat. I mean, that has managed to get immigration numbers down. Like someone, nobody cares. 10 years ago or 15 years ago, I wouldn't have thought that these old divisions would be there again, suddenly. And as I said again, factually, there is no real reason for it. I mean, the East Party, especially Saxony, is very rural and they have lost a lot of people. But in a strange way, this whole election, and that's what is the problem here. That was the problem with Starmars. Well, it's also about vibes. Now these election campaigns.

31:58I mean, I rather think that it's a need to need to burn them. I mean, let's see whether he will survive. But you need leaders who can communicate even the harsh parts of their policy in a good way and spread some kind of feeling of community and tribal hope. And that's what the AFD did in Saxony, I'm not. And that's what Merz hasn't been able to do at all. He couldn't even rally his own party behind him. He couldn't get his coalition together. They were constantly fighting in Berlin on every piece of policy. And then I did it openly. So people got increasingly the feeling these guys don't know what they're doing. They're fighting each other. They're not leading the country. And my personal economic situation is going downhill or might go downhill in the future. I think that's the problem. I just need proper leadership that goes against these kind of negative vibes that everything will be only well if you rally within a nationalist white tribe, like what the AFD is trying to do.

32:59I did see a senior AFD person called Sven Tritscher, I think, Tritschland, maybe. He's the AFD's former youth organizer who like Alice Vydel is gay. And very active was very active in this campaign, this election. And I found his statement really interesting. He was given an interview and he said what we did here is we put egos aside and united behind the best candidate. This unity is something that other branches should take a cue from. And that felt quite pointed. Is there internal AFD fighting that we don't see from an international level? For us, the AFD is just one amorphous mass. And for many people it joins Marine Le Penz party in her filters and reform. And it's very easy to feel overwhelmed by this dark matters around. But actually those parties are also quite fragile internally, aren't they often?

34:03Very often the reason why the AFD is so much more dangerous than other right wing populist or far right extremist parties is because they are quite united at the moment. They have completely changed over the last two, three years. The bigger they grew, the more radical they became. Alice Vydel was not part of the very radical fulcusher, the tribal nationalist faction of the party, but they have taken over now. And she is sort of given up and is now leading them and has agreed with them. The really extremist streak, I mean the extremist people in within AFD are now dominating the party and they're doing it very well. I mean, it's a bit of a cliche, but Germans can organize themselves and they have this all. That was kind of that was kind of the point I was making actually, but I don't think I made it very well. The point I was making was that AFD is actually exceptional in that. Yes, exactly. Very broadly organized. Yes, it's not dependent on just one person's charisma.

35:06Oh no. And actually if you look at Marine Le Penz party or reform UK or had Wilders party, they don't share these characteristics. They are largely personality cults to an extent. I don't know enough about a pen and her party, but I definitely compared to for our should reform. I mean, that is a big big asset AFD has. I mean, they are very, they have lots of rising stars and they have not only a big youth movement. They also have money from wherever that is something that needs to be investigated as well like here, but they also have an ideological backbone that is much stronger than here. I mean, if you look at these manifestos, they're written by some people who really know what they're doing. They're not as dependent on kind of intellectual ideological support from America like reform is here with James Orm serving his conservative keyboards in it's garden waste trying to the AFD is doing that themselves. There is a very strong intellectual fundamental base to that as well. So and they are very well organized now and they're disciplined. So this is something I think what makes them as well, much more dangerous.

36:15They have shifted moved far to the extremist right and they have started organizing themselves really well. One final question to wrap this up because you've given me my most generous with your time that we anticipated, but these conversations are always so interesting. Yes, there is an active effort, I think, to link this stuff internationally and say the far right in Europe or the far right across the world is on the rise. But actually, inter far right politics are not simple. No, I mean movements who are not up for compromise and that's basically the rejection of liberal democracy is rejecting compromise and wanting to push through your try. These kind of movements always end up fighting each other like rats in a sack at the end of the day. And I think that's something that can also, I mean, to just end up in the hopeful note that can give you a more optimistic mood. I mean, this is not forever and this is a wave that is rising, but also waves to go down again.

37:19I'm not totally pessimistic because I mean, I've just seen this morning there will be huge rallies all over Germany of people protesting this. I mean, this might also really wake up the civil society to a different degree now in Germany. And at the same time, we'll see what happens there, whether he really will govern, I mean, to govern out of a minority position being tolerated by all people Sarabagan Kniecht, who is highly complicated and very ruthless person. This all might go really badly wrong. I mean, who knows? I mean, I still do not think that you should let these parties into power because they always destroy so much that you can't repair it afterwards. But still, I mean, it's not the end of the world. Let's see what happens now. Anita, thank you so much for offering up this brilliant explanation as always. We'll talk again soon. Thanks so much for having me. It was fun talking to you as always. Not fun exactly today, but it was interesting. See you soon. Thank you, Anita. It's quiet. Ryan.

38:22It's quiet. Ryan. It was interesting doing that interview while all this reform stuff was going on because I think it really brought into sharp focus the fundamental difference between the AFD and most other European far right parties. In that the AFD is a genuine network. It's sort of formidable organized at grassroots local level has a big ushing and notably I think does not rely on one charismatic figurehead like Le Pen or Faraj or whoever. Are we actually seeing attempts of the UK far right to emulate that things like Patriot platform and United Kingdom. Are they attempts to shift power to the grassroots network of far right supporters? I think it's quite interesting what we're seeing in Britain. It may not be happening, but it could well be that we're just beginning to see people on the British right trying to build a machine rather than relying on celebrities they've done for the last 10, 15 years of more.

39:25I think that's where Germany should worry those of us in the sense of politics much more than France. If the pain disappears our ends got succession problem if Faraj disappears reform has got a Faraj problem. AFD can lose individual personalities and that machine will carry on and it's a very very strong model for anybody that was wanting to make mischief as probably the wrong phrase. And he was wanting to professionalize the right politics in this country. And they have had donations scandals very similar to what's going on here right now, but they just said that leadership got new leadership and actually you know the true power brokers are the regional people. I think you're exactly right to have the instinct that the far right here will emulate success wherever they've seen it now of course different voting systems. It doesn't always pan out the same way under first pass opposed however you have got Elon Musk very quickly, rowing in to congratulate them.

40:34We know that you know he's a big fan of Rupert Lowe and will be not short of throwing him a bubble to I should imagine at some point in the future if Ristall look like they could begin to grow that grassroots network that the AFD have spent you know a very long time cultivating but that doing so very effectively. One of the things that I think I'm most concerned about being emulated is this revisionism of history and what do I mean by that well my colleague at best for written Lorena who like Annessa is a German living in London wrote something over on the best written subset that has really stuck with me will leave a link in the show notes. So she grew up in Germany inside what they call the culture of remembrance so children were taught to read down Frank Syrie a Holocaust survivor came to Lorena school to describe being forced to strip naked in front of an SS soldier. She remembers the stumbling stones in the pavement the memorial in the middle of Berlin that is so powerful and this whole country refusing to look away from its darkest chapter and now the AFD a party that remember is officially classified as right wing extremist by the German government.

41:51Has just one nearly 44% in the state election calling that remembrance culture an identity disorder that is holding Germany back and that's what frightens her most not just a vote but this party attacking the very reckoning that German democracy was rebuilt on. And I worry that we're going to begin to see even more of that happening here you know we've had an echo of it from the reform party conference that we can about national anthem being sung in schools up and down the country that is the beginning of what they will be desperate to try and do to park back to no colonial power was wonderful and brilliant and wasn't and highly expletive stain on Britain's history so I think it'll go beyond the. Emulating of the grassroots network building and professionalism and and into some very very dark cultural stuff so it's really low and restore. Actually more dangerous proposition in that he's not the big charismatic leader but he is much more open to accepting these large groups of outright racist movements and funding from people like musk.

43:08And if you end up in a situation where reform crumbles because of what's going on there might be quite a large block that instead of sort of going back to their default before which was not to vote just transfers over to rupture loads lot I think that's a danger that feels to me it's not being taken seriously enough. I think there's a lot to be said for extreme levels of caution on this front because the right in our politics isn't going to disappear in the next 10 years that's just not going to happen but I do think that we should avoid making the classic mistake of staring at poll numbers but what we should be looking at is organizations restored don't make 20% nationally to matter if restore bill of functioning set up with local branches and get these donors sorted out and become somewhere that activists who are dissatisfied with our ag campaign. So when that changes the competitive pressure on reform and there's a very important political mechanism is buried in that the danger to reform isn't necessarily that restore replace is it it's that restore becomes the price setter if you like on the right and every time far as moderates low can say we're over here and that produces a situation where a small party exerts enormous influence if the larger party is frightened of losing say 5% of its voters.

44:26Is an example of this in this country yeah you're down right you see how reform has impacted the conservative party and you get before them. Exactly and ultimately leading to the Brexit vote we heard in 2016 and I think you're right it's the dragging effects on that over to window and we've now got Tom Tugan hat back in the front bench of the shadow cabinet having to now defend the party's positioning on the ECH. So I think that's a very important thing to do is to make sure a relatively if one could still use that term applied to him wet conservative or certainly historically more of a one nation. Are they not one you know even he now knows that my political fortune rests on my ability to suck that up now look on the other side and I think we do need to give listeners a little bit of good news. Burnham's bounce and burnham very effectively now it seems consolidating the progressive block back behind Labour reconstituting that 2024 willing coalition bringing back voters from don't know and wouldn't vote in a few back from the green.

45:33And Lib Dems has had an impact on the organisation within Labour grassroots and MPs are telling me last summer bloody difficult to get local leaflet deliveries to come out on a wet afternoon and do a door knocking this summer it was raining but be you know they are finding that is much easier to get the local activists out on the door steps living leaflets as spreading the message so. There is some good news on the other side in terms of the organisation as well look I think there is genuine good news because I think this this transformation that is going on at the moment will be quite dramatic and will take them a couple of electoral cycles at the very least to get their act together so I think for us was a lower risk but a much more immediate one if that makes sense but an AFD type out fit is a highest take but is a little way in the future in the British context. The other thing I wanted to ask you about was this concept of nostalgia if a phenomenon like nostalgia is not just limited to Germany is in that sense an atmosphere of disorder created by these musked militias trolling over whatever is it a win win for far right parties because actually if you're broadly supportive you see them as heroes but even if you're not supportive you see the kind of thing that is going to be a lot of things.

47:00So if you're a country sleeping into a kind of chaos and there are some people whose instincts will be to just give into that and say well right then if you want to have a go at putting the country in order then we've tried all the others so you might as well. I think what we've seen in polling UK polling that might touch on this a little bit is that younger voters are less keen on democracy than millennial gen X etc voters and that is because democracy hasn't really worked for them they obviously you know are the cohort suffering at the very very sharp end of not being in employment educational training whose job opportunities are not as prolific as those of their parents. And grandparents who have very little chance of guessing on the housing ladder without very significant inheritance to give them a leg up who probably face pretty grim rental conditions if they are able to move out of home.

48:00You know, saddled with huge amounts of debt if they had gone to university and again this is sort of a bit you know echoing what we talked about yesterday in terms of legitimate concerns, all of those are very legitimate things for young people to be worried about the pension age becoming a thing that you can only hope to live long enough to see if you're very young the NHS potentially not being around to support you in your old age when if you're lucky enough to have a job right now your taxes are going on supporting an NHS free at the point of use for the L's. who are much more reliant on it. So there is a legitimate concern there and of course the prescription that the far right will come along and offer them is authoritarian rule by the strong men of history who will look after you. I do think that that is potentially where we're seeing the beginnings of that taking route here in the UK. I think it's quite important to make the point that far right parties don't necessarily need actual disorder. What they need is the perception of lost order which is where that nostalgia for imagined conditions and imagined countries at a past

49:03comes in control. Exactly that. When the streets were safe and when jobs were secure and when institutions worked and key everybody supports that you where they belonged in a pecking order. And when chocolate bars were big. Oh my goodness I'm voting for reform. I think I'd resist calling it a win window because there is one way that the right lose with this and that's when a group of voters conclude that the right are the source of disorder. And this tends to happen with right wing groups eventually. Oftentimes it's provoked by individuals getting very gritty for power and or money on the right. But that's why the Dover Balaklava's matter. Because soft reform curious voters who are quite attracted to the control of the boarders narrative may be considerably less keen on mass men closing ports and loving bricks at the place as well. So it's not black and white issue in that respect. But the amber warning flashing, the amber flashing warning lies are very definitely switched on with this what I

50:07would say. Why? Riot. Now it's time to wind back the clock and properly reset it to current times. It's one of our creep like you the features. All news. Alex what all news have you got for us today? Partly because of what Faraz was doing with Jordan Bardela last week. And partly because I was talking to Anita Dietert about the situation in Germany I fell into a kind of time warp of checking out the history of the interfighting of these various parties in the past. You may well know that Nigel Farage had an absolute feud with Marine Le Pen's party in the early 2010s because he refused to let the front nationalers it was then into his parliamentary grouping at the European Parliament. The first

51:13time they won a significant number of seats because he labeled them anti-Semites. Why are you not going into alliance with the French national front? We just want nothing to do with that party. At all. The French national front and us come from completely different political traditions and backgrounds. Our view is whatever Marine Le Pen is trying to do with the front national anti-Semitism is still embedded deeply in that party and for that principled political reason we're not going to work with them now or any point in the future. Marine Le Pen gave several interviews that were very rude about Faraz then a natural MEP from the front national defected to Faraz's grouping over a particular vote. So there was a lot of bad blood and it mattered because Marine Le Pen didn't manage to get basically any European Parliament short money that term because you have to be part of a group that includes sufficient numbers and sufficient countries under European rules. So this was a proper feud

52:14fast forward to 2024 and not only are Faraz and Le Pen best mates but also Le Pen is now the person excluding the AFD from her grouping at the European Parliament because she says they're too far right for her taste. What I didn't know is that in the very early stages of the AFD in Germany in 2014 they also objected to both Marine Le Pen and Nigel Faraz as the Lithobic Parties. In 2014 when they were first elected to the European Parliament they said this is the quote from their leader band Luca we may line up with parties that have similar ideas to ours but certainly not with xenophobic parties. We might see quite a few new parties in Parliament if pollsters are right but we will never align with anti-immigration or anti-EU parties. So they ruled out Gert Wilders

53:15Marine Le Pen and Nigel Faraz. They were invited to join the European Conservative and Reformist group to which David Cameron's Conservatives belonged and they turned that down because of his promise over a referendum on Britain's membership and he said that Luca to the media at the time a British exit from the EU would definitely not be in the German interest. Nigel Faraz gave a statement and again I quote the AFD needs to get real they have got something that could catch fire but they don't know how to market it. I find all of that just utterly fascinating how they have morphed and removed like sort of blobs from a 50s B movie in order to be friendly to each other, be hostile to each other and gulf each other and always advancing. That's the thing the AFD in 2014 wasn't the AFD that is now in 2046. It started out as a very professorial anti-European party and then

54:21subsequently it was an anti-Europe party. It was very in favour of membership but it was and didn't the currency. In all say it had loads of trouble with the Eastern European far-right parties because it was complaining about immigration from Eastern Europe and the nationalist parties in places like Estonia and Poland etc. They didn't like that so they also didn't want to collaborate with the AFD but I just find it interesting how they swap positions and redefine each other with relation to each other. It's also funny how Cameron's name just crops up again and again in these sort of disasters because you know how many times as he constructed a political infrastructure for the right that the radical right have then decided oh we're having some of this actually. Yeah we're having that and we're not having the same boundaries that you might have either so thanks very much for your efforts mate. I think what it says to me is that red lines are actually a

55:25queue. Like these are three people that have you know probably all dated each other at one point in the past then fall announced one that they'd never ever speak to the others ever again that are now like turning up to the reunion as a throttle. Yeah and this is not much more than 10 years ago so maybe the people we should be keeping an eye on maybe the people who are most dangerous in all this are Jamie made notes conservatives she's already making noises that actually sees to the right of reform UK and many issues and there's already a strong conspiracy theory fermenting within reform that she's working with Rupert Lowe that they're very much cooperating people are openly saying that are news channels that Kenny Baiden and Ken Rupert Lowe have a sort of fact so maybe that's the danger actually but we wish I'll see it's all very interesting isn't it? Oh your time machine is a terrifying thing Alex it really is thank you again listeners if you've got any other suggestions for old news send them to the usual address that's quiet riot pod at gmail dot com

56:35and that is the end of today's beside show thanks once again to Annette and to everyone at home who's tuned in we'll be back on Sunday with a more relaxed take on the week's political bake and a Sunday evening we're very excited to see lots of you online for our latest editorial meeting it's only for paying backers remember so do head on over to keo-fi.com slash quiet riot pod to sign up for access we love you all more than Annette I love the narrow boat bye quiet quiet riot is an ordinary production from Coolerheads written produced by Alex Andro Naomi Smith and Kenny Campbell music by Marianna Sanquita artwork by Simone Canelo and that is it by me Alex Reese although you slightly undermining my attempt to end on a light because do you know I might edit it to come after this bit I can do that I am the god