Radical left and radical right have become indistinguishable

John Kampfner is a British author, broadcaster and commentator. His latest book is “In Search of Berlin,” published by Atlantic.

Is Sahra Wagenknecht, Germany’s politician of the moment, far right or far left?

I ask because in a piece I wrote on the eve of the dramatic Sept. 1 elections in Saxony and Thuringia, I labelled her the former, only to receive a series of comments from readers insisting she was the latter.

At the time, I stood my ground. But upon reflection, I now think the argument is largely irrelevant. Wagenknecht has made political labels redundant.

The problem currently facing Germany — as well as Europe and much of the world — goes beyond terminology. The new fault line is mainstream versus populist or, in the case of postwar political arrangements in Germany specifically, the established parties versus the insurgent ones.

Back in May, the Financial Times reported on the scale of the popularity of extreme politics among Europe’s youth. The terms “left” and “right” — which refer to seating arrangements in the National Assembly formed after the French Revolution in 1789 — mean little to this generation and, increasingly, to older ones too.

The economic and social dividing lines that dominated political debate until recently no longer apply. For example, many members of today’s radical right — from France’s National Rally (RN) to Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) — advocate a major role for the state. Only few, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republicans most important among them, actually call for deregulation and tax cuts, while ReformUK and other parties try to have it both ways.

Also, when it comes to social politics, quite a few — from RN to Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party in the Netherlands — are relatively liberal, partly to attract those who see Muslim immigration as undermining their countries’ sovereignty. However, the farther east one travels across the Continent, the more these parties espouse traditional family values, as is seen with Poland’s Law and Justice or Slovakia’s ruling coalition.

Interestingly, the main common denominator among these groups seems to be their discreet or open support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Pro-Russia sentiment — which was once the preserve of the far left — is now espoused by the far right, and the Kremlin is happy to embrace and fund both.

This is the horseshoe in action, and Wagenknecht is the most significant and complicated new member of this club — she’s also in a category of her own.

Described by the recently banned right-wing magazine Compact as “the most appealing national temptation since the foundation of socialism,” Wagenknecht joined the East Germany communist party just before the wall came down and became one of the leaders of its successor party, the Left. Growing bored, she then politely rebuffed overtures from the AfD to start her own outfit — established in her own name and very much reflecting her glamorized image.

As it stands, Wagenknecht’s two calling cards — or at least the two her party used to stunning success in their recent campaign and will undoubtedly redeploy in the Brandenburg elections on Sept. 22 — are to seek an end to Germany’s support for Ukraine and a clampdown on asylum seekers, weaving the pair together in a general railing against the mainstream.

We have, of course, seen this before. This convergence of far left and right was also one of the grisly fascinations of Britain’s madcap Brexit referendum in 2016. And it was something that had been in the making for some time — much has been written about former members of the Revolutionary Communist Party who saw an anti-establishment talisman in former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

So, where did Brexit begin and Lexit end? Left-wing supporters of leaving the EU have always been a curious bunch. Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, for instance, claimed after the event that he didn’t back Brexit, and yet, whether he intended to or not, deployed the same arguments as those on the radical left — and radical right — who wanted out. While Conservative euroskeptics railed against Brussels for being a high-spending unaccountable cabal, those on the left saw it as an anti-democratic corporatist conspiracy. Spot the difference?

Both sides deployed a similar narrative, even if coming from different starting points, of an EU beyond its sell-by date. “The European Union has now reached an advanced stage of disintegration. There are two possibilities for its future: either it has not passed the point of no return and can still be democratized, stabilized, rationalized, and humanized. Or disintegration is certain,” Varoufakis argued. 

Today, these forces of hard left and hard right have much of the political momentum, partly because disruption is sexy and partly because the mainstream camp is out of touch and floundering. And as it stands, there are few prepared to defend the post-1989 order.

Someone who does do so is unabashed former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair. Insisting in a recent BBC interview that “the world is not going to slow down,” he posited the solution lay in equipping people for rapid change rather than trying to pretend it, indeed, can be slowed down.

He also admits that many feel angry and disoriented: “Where people feel the world is changing in a way in which they don’t have a lot of control, then they cling to their identity.” But while his arguments are consistent and logical, they pay little heed to actual electoral politics — perhaps as he’s long been out of office.

Then, sometimes cited as the heir to Blair — at least early in his presidency — there’s French President Emmanuel Macron, who has tried to tone down his tough message on the chill winds of economic change. And yet he’s still identified as a Davos Man.

Meanwhile, both German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer would resile from such rhetoric, seeing the main hope for the political mainstream in producing dogged improvements in people’s lives. But Scholz is now entering the twilight of his chancellorship, with defeat in Germany’s upcoming general election all but certain, leaving a vacuum for the AfD and BSW to fill. And Starmer has barely begun his tenure, with a clear five years to test the proposition that pragmatic delivery can halt the populist bandwagon.

Across Europe and further afield, the radical left and the radical right have become indistinguishable. And as long as the center struggles to make its case in a way that galvanizes, there will be many more like Wagenknecht.