Why is the far right winning in Europe? Germany’s AfD party has won two state elections in a month; nearly one in four Europeans now votes far right, and in three of the continent’s five biggest economies the far right either leads or governs.
The way that we’re opposing it clearly isn’t working. So what should the left, and we as organisers, do now?
To answer these questions I interviewed my colleague, Julijana Zita (who lives in a German village where many people vote AfD). And on Friday, I hosted a DiEM25 livestream with Yanis Varoufakis and Grace Blakeley, where we discussed the historical context and plotted ways forward.
Then I sat down alone and recorded a short video on what organisers should do about it: five things to stop and start. It’s a new format, and I’ll try to make one after each livestream. I’ve pulled the answers together in the article below. Or if you prefer to watch, it’s seven minutes:
If you’ve got thoughts on this, on opposing the far right where you live, things that work and things that don’t, just hit ‘reply’. Let’s go.
Stop trying to win the argument
The left keeps thinking it’s losing because it hasn’t found the right argument yet. Just one more policy paper, one more fact-check, we reason, and people will be persuaded.
Grace explained why that fails. The centre makes people’s lives worse, then tells them they’re imagining it. That’s what makes them angry.
And it isn’t poverty that drives the far-right vote. It’s the fear of losing what they have. In the German state election in Saxony-Anhalt last month, the AfD came first in every job group. That includes civil servants, who have the safest jobs in the country. And only one in five people in Saxony-Anhalt think the economy is in good shape.
So start with the fear. You might think it’s overblown; you might think it’s aimed at the wrong people. Agree that it’s real anyway, and say so before you say a word about causes or fixes. I made this case at more length in a piece for Waging Nonviolence in June.
Mehran Khalili
The livestream added a point that follows from this: never call these voters racists. The AfD got nearly 44% in Saxony-Anhalt. We can’t build a majority by writing off 44% of voters.
No, I’m not saying none of them are racist; some of them probably are. I’m saying calling them racist is how you lose them. All the label tells them is that nobody’s listening.
On Monday: next time someone tells you they’re worried, start by telling them they’re right to be worried. Then take it from there.
Stop backing the firewall
Centrist parties often team up to keep the far right out of power. In Germany, every other party refuses to work with the AfD. That’s known as the firewall.
Now, this move might keep the far right out of office. But it hasn’t stopped them growing anywhere it’s been tried. The far right now leads the polls in Germany, France and Flanders.
Grace was blunt about this on Friday: as a tactic, the firewall doesn’t work! It tells voters their vote is beyond the pale, and that makes them more sure of the far right, not less. Saxony-Anhalt shows it: the firewall held, and the AfD got 43.8%.
Shutting them out might feel right. But beating them is the only thing that works. (Bans backfire for the same reason. I made that case when France barred Le Pen from running: ban the candidate, boost the cause.)
On Monday: don’t make the firewall your strategy. Put your energy into beating the far right instead.
Mehran Khalili
Start earning outsider credentials
“Whom should I vote for to piss off the establishment? … If it is Satan, I’ll vote for Satan.”
— Yanis Varoufakis, on the motivations of Trump voters
A lot of people vote for the AfD because it looks like the rebel, the outsider.
The far right shouldn’t be the only ones with outsider credentials. We should be the fuck-you button.
My interview with Julijana Zita points to why: in her words, the AfD isn’t a magnet for ideology. It’s a magnet for frustration. People have lost trust in established parties, and the AfD is the only party that looks like it means what it says.
The numbers back her up. The AfD’s biggest net gain in Saxony-Anhalt, about 170,000 votes, came from people who didn’t vote last time. That’s more than it took from the CDU, FDP, Linke, SPD and Greens combined. These were people who’d given up on parties.
Adam Tooze made the same point on his Substack recently. Being called extremist is what proves the AfD isn’t the establishment. The label is the credential.
The left can’t earn that credential by breaking the rules of decency, and it shouldn’t try. Ours has to come from this: taking on power and being seen to pay for it.
Look at the recent state election in Berlin. The left party, Die Linke, came first by naming the corporate landlords who set the rents in that city. It’s been under attack ever since.
This isn’t about being rude or edgy. The attacks are the proof.
On Monday: ask what your group has given up to take a position. If the answer is nothing, that might be why nobody sees you as the rebel.
Start naming the enemy
Grace made a vital point on Friday: most people don’t know a billionaire. Capital is a hard enemy to organise around. It’s why “the problem is capitalism” goes nowhere without a first fight.
Mehran Khalili
The far right’s enemy, by contrast, is that guy sitting next to you on the bus. That family who just moved in down the street.
So name your enemy. Yanis gave an example of how: When someone blames migrants for their rent, don’t argue. Ask about their building. Was it council housing once? Who owns it now? What happened to the rent?
That’s what Die Linke did in Berlin, where 84% of people rent. It named the companies: Vonovia, Deutsche Wohnen. Its programme opens with one line: your rent is their return. Those are companies with head offices, CEOs and shareholders.
On Monday: write down the name and address of whoever’s making life hard where you live. A landlord, an energy company, a council leader. If you can’t name them, you might not have a campaign yet.
Start building small groups that win things
Grace described what the far right actually offers people: “put your balaclava on and you’ll feel strong again”. It’s the sense of belonging people get at a football match... and it used to be ours. In the past, the left had unions, working men’s clubs, friendly societies. As Grace pointed out, Mussolini copied them.
The people drifting to the AfD are scared of losing what they have, and they’re looking for whoever looks like they’re doing something. A manifesto won’t beat that. Turning up and doing things where people live will.
We don’t need big numbers to win. Small, precise actions can do it. And small groups that win small things solve two problems at once:
- Burnout: If your goal is “fix housing”, well, that never ends. If your goal is “get this landlord to fix the heating by March”, on the other hand, that’s achievable and has an end point. A win like that is what brings people back. A demand needs to be something you can measure, or you’ll never know you’ve won.
- Credibility: A party that turns up and wins something on your street doesn’t need a leaflet. The proof is right there.
Mehran Khalili
You might be thinking there’s no time for this before the next election, and you’re probably right. A first win can take months, and building belonging takes years. It won’t decide the next election. It’ll decide the one after. So start now.
On Monday: pick a fight you can win in the next three months. One target, one demand, one date.
That’s it from me.
Five things worth reading
- Yanis Varoufakis on how the left can beat the far right on the economics. They steal the left’s lines on bankers and the “uniparty”, then go quiet on big business. Yanis’ answer is three policies: take investment out of the hands of financial markets, stop private banks creating money, and give each employee one share and one vote.
- Jamie Dettmer on the AfD’s new smile. Five years ago its Saxony-Anhalt posters said “Enough.” This time they said “Everything is Possible,” and its candidate toured on an old East German moped, taking selfies. The historian Katja Hoyer has a line worth keeping in mind: people want to feel someone has a plan, and it doesn’t even have to be realistic.
- My former livestream guest David Broder on why the AfD isn’t just an eastern story. It now tops the polls in the west too, and its vote peaks among men in their 40s, not pensioners who miss the GDR. He also shows how Die Linke won Berlin: knocking on doors about rents.
- Aaron Bastani on what Occupy got wrong, fifteen years on. It made no demands and built no organisations, and it mistook protest for progress. His fix is an old one: build the party, serve the people. Acorn and the London Renters Union get a mention as the rare groups that got it right.
- Ryan Broderick on a Saturday-night war scare that filled X and barely spread beyond it. Most of the viral videos were old Instagram Reels. It’s a sign that X may be losing its power to build consensus for war. That fits what I found in March: most people already oppose the Iran war. The hard part is turning that into pressure.
From the archive
Last November I wrote about why we should stop blaming voters for the far right. People who vote far right keep telling us the same five things: they feel devalued, they have no say, things change without their consent, costs keep going up, and they’ve lost control. The left answers with slogans like “Change.”
One more thing
After the video went up, I replied to a comment on it with “You’re right that a lot of this is reality.” I meant the part about deindustrialisation, but I cut that clause. Within a day, someone was using my reply as proof that I agreed English people are a minority in London. I’d followed the first rule in this piece and skipped the fine print. I’ve now edited the comment.
Lesson for me: tell people their fear is real, yes. But say exactly which part.