Guest blogging at EUROPP: The AfD’s second place in Mecklenburg-West & the challenges facing Merkel in 2017

The result of yesterday’s regional election in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania (aka Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for the initiated or Meck-Pomm for the impatient) was not a surprise, but still a shock to many. I wrote a short article for the LSE’s EUROPP blog. Angela Merkel’s CDU came third behind the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the German Social Democrats…

Germany’s AfD does a Trump, demands blanket ban on asylum for Muslims

In a press statement this morning, the AfD’s deputy leader Alexander Gauland (who is also head of the party’s chapter and the parliamentary party in the Eastern state of Brandenburg) has demanded a (temporary) ban on Muslims seeking refuge in Germany “until all asylum seekers in Germany have been registered, checked upon, and have their…

Guest Blog: Brexit (Arne Niemann)

1st guest blog ever: Nach dem Brexit-Referendum bringen alle denkbaren Modelle für eine Neuregelung der Beziehungen zwischen Großbritannien und der Europäischen Union Nachteile: für Deutschland, für die EU – und besonders für Großbritannien selbst. Ein Verbleib Großbritanniens im Europäischen Wirtschaftraum (auch als „norwegisches Modell“ bezeichnet) wäre dabei für alle Beteiligten höchstwahrscheinlich mit den geringsten ökonomischen…

Brexit : What I learned from watching BBC News for 48 hours straight

So Britain has voted for Leave. The BBC is providing coverage 24/7. And the most amazing thing? To me,  it is the deafening silence from the Conservative leadership and the Leave campaign.
The country has just held what might be the most important vote in a generation or more. Britain is divided against itself in all sorts of ways. The rest of Europe is jumping up and down excitedly. Foreign ministers and PMs across the continent try to calm down the markets and their people.
Meanwhile in Britain, there is zilch political leadership. No one is outlining any sort of plan. Boris,  the man who has supposedly won the campaign, has not been seen or heard since Friday morning. Cameron is doing business as usual, inspecting the armed forces. The rest of them probably had plans for the weekend, as opposed to plans for carrying out Brexit. For the outsider, it looks once more like bloody amateur night in British politics – a night that might last all summer.

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Quick hit on the Super State Election Sunday (TM)

A mere three hours after the event, it’s obviously too early to write something coherent about the three state elections that were held in Germany today. So let’s try it anyway: For the time being, Germany has a viable Radical Right Populist Party. A result of ~24% in the Eastern state of Sachsen-Anhalt is a…

Liveblogging the March 13 2016 state elections

21.37: I’ve written a quick summary of the elections. Calling it a day now. 21.35: The Greens are probably in in Rheinland-Pfalz and Sachsen-Anhalt. The FDP is probably out in Sachsen-Anhalt but in the other states. 20.49: Nice graphical summary of the scale of the shift https://twitter.com/GrimmRob/status/709102044653756417 20.39: Lest we forget: The Liberals are back…

Will the right-wing extremist NPD be banned? We have no idea, actually

Unbalanced Scale Silhouette

After a subjective decade, the trial that could lead to a ban of the right-wing extremist NPD, Germany’s oldest surviving Extreme Right party, has finally begun this week. That alone is news: Last time around, a blocking minority of the judges was so concerned about the unknown informers within the party’s leadership that the proceedings…