Germany’s Political Disaster and Can the Lib Dems Fight Back?

Alastair Campbell (0:00)

When Angela Merkel was busy serving over 16 years as the Chancellor of Germany, her party was the CDU, and her constituency base was Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

At the regional election there at the weekend, the far-right, Alternative for Deutschland, topped the poll, and Merkel's party secured precisely zero seats. The current Chancellor and CDU leader, Friedrich Merz, calls it a disaster. It is also a political earthquake. There was another one, in Berlin, where the hard-left, Die Linke Party, topped the poll, driving the CDU out of government there. Germany is the third largest economy in the world. It sits right at the heart of the whole future of the EU and is increasingly central to how Europe funds its own defence. The AfD and Die Linke are existential threats to Germany's membership of the EU and of NATO. So is this just a German domestic story, or is it actually the story that determines what happens to Europe's security and our future?

Rory Stewart (1:10)

Welcome to The Rest Is Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart.

Alastair Campbell (1:14)

And me, Alastair Campbell.

Rory Stewart (1:15)

Range of really interesting questions that have come in. But the ones that are really driving it that we're going to be discussing today are the results in the German elections, where you absolutely understand Germany are going to make us into the hearts of what's happening not just with the far right, but now with the far left in the most important economy and political force in Europe. Then we're going to talk about rural Britain. Much neglect said, what's happening with rural affairs? How do we think about rural communities in somewhere like Britain? We're going to get into the perennial subject of the Lib Dems and what their future could be. What's the future for centrist parties in Britain? We're going to talk about some more fun subjects, whether we could do longer interviews. We're going to talk about languages versus instruments. We're going to touch on the Royal National Lifeboat Incident and particularly far-right protests against their escorting migrants.

Maybe we'll get on to the question ultimately of hope. We're starting, Alastair, with a question from our listener, Valentin. Should Merz be replaced as Keir Starmer was? Should Friedrich Merz, the Chancellor of Germany, be replaced? This, of course, is in the wake of this catastrophic election result in the province of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.

How do you say that in German?

Alastair Campbell (2:26)

Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. Well, it's very hard to replace him if he doesn't want to go, because the only way to do it would be to have a vote of confidence which he loses, and then you would almost certainly be forced into an election, which you would also, and these results, clearly lose.

Rory Stewart (2:42)

The results, just quickly, as an explainer, before you do the commentary, AFD, the Alternative for Germany and the far-right party, 38.2 percent. SPD, the traditional labour party equivalent, 35.5 percent. The CDU, which is a traditional Tory equivalent, which is Friedrich Merz's own party, and this is running in Angela Merkel's own state, and she was, of course, the CDU leader, got below 5 percent, 4.9 percent, lost all its seats.

It's unimaginable. It would be like the Tories being wiped out in a key seat where one of their leaders had been.

Alastair Campbell (3:22)

Yeah, absolutely. No, it is unimaginable. I mean, if you think that when Fiona and I were in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern a few months ago, the hotel that we stayed in had a massive portrait of Angela Merkel on the wall.

It's like her territory, and she won. She was an MP there for 30 years. She was four terms of chancellor, and in little or no time, they've gone to a place. This is the first time ever the CDU will have no representation in a regional parliament. Then before we come back to Mecklenburg-Fort Pomeran, there was this other election in Berlin, which is its own regional parliament, which was won by Dylinka, which is this very left-wing party.

This is again, was previously Christian Democrats, previously CDU. Also there, the Social Democrat Party did really badly. What's interesting about what's happened in Mecklenburg-Fort Pomeran, people might think, well, this is good for the SPD. But the truth is that Manuela Schwase, who was the minister president there and the candidate, she fought a campaign that was very much about vote for me. This isn't a party vote for me. Added to it, she probably had a lot of tactical voting in her favor.

Rory Stewart (4:38)

I'm the only person who can really take on the AFD, so she will have got a lot of people.

Alastair Campbell (4:41)