“I feel like one of the reasons far-right narratives are so successful is that we’re lacking community, especially in big cities like Berlin,” says Anne, who became a member of Die Linke, Germany’s left-wing party, four weeks ago. “I think if we want to keep this whole thing going, we need to be more involved in our communities. And I really want to participate and keep this change going.”
Anne sums up a strategic shift that is taking place across the European left. Left parties across the continent — from the Belgian Workers’ Party (PTB) to the Austrian Communist Party — have realized that they can only survive if they become a part of the communities they’re trying to represent.
Far-right parties have had astonishing success in embedding themselves in working-class communities across Europe. In doing so, they have displaced the left parties that have traditionally dominated these areas — particularly in the big cities.
The reasons for the far right’s success are clear. Across Europe, living standards have declined thanks to a corrupt, self-serving political class more concerned with pleasing financial markets than with meeting the needs of working people. The far right has responded with a simple and compelling message: migrants are making you poor.
Left-wing leaders like Peter Mertens, the PTB’s general secretary, saw that his party needed to transform to survive. He faced pressure to concede to far-right narratives on migration while offering left-wing economic policies. But he knew that choosing this path would only speed up the party’s decline.
“People can smell if you’re honest,” Mertens told me when I interviewed him last year. “You have to live there, you have to be there — in the pubs, in the…
Auteur: Grace Blakeley
