Editorial: The Guardian

• The growing popularity of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD) has become an unpalatable feature of Europe’s political landscape.
• The AfD now stands as a leading party in three eastern states that are having elections in the fall and second in the national polls.
• The party has been denounced for its blatantly xenophobic platform and for exploiting widespread insecurity and hardship for their own ends.
• There is heightened concern that the AfD poses a material threat to Germany’s postwar constitution with the recent revelation of a meeting between senior AfD officials and other prominent far-right extremists to discuss a plan for forced mass deportations of migrants.
• Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has already designated party organisations in eight out of the country’s 16 federal states as either ‘proven to be right-wing extremist’ or ‘suspected to be right-wing extremist'.
• The shocking nature of the latest disclosures has prompted calls for the party to be banned by the federal constitutional court, however, this process could be challenging to achieve and risky as it might strengthen the AfD’s anti-establishment credentials at a time when it has gained significant political capital.

Conclusion: As illustrated by the Potsdam affair, it is crucial to maintain the political cordon sanitaire at a federal level to keep the AfD out of any governing coalition. In the long term, a battle of hearts and minds is required to defeat the party, demanding greater ambition and imagination from the mainstream political class.

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