Despite suffering their worst electoral humiliation since the 1890s, Germany’s Social Democrat party (SPD) is displaying a remarkable combination of arrogance and delusion. Having collapsed to a mere 16 per cent in last month’s election, the party has nonetheless strong-armed Friedrich Merz’s victorious CDU into abandoning fiscal discipline and embracing ruinous debt policies.
This audacious blackmail would be impressive if it weren’t so dangerous for Germany’s economic future. Yet amidst this parliamentary chess game, the SPD remains stubbornly blind to the fundamental reason for their historic decline: they refuse to acknowledge that their traditional voter base, the German working class, has decamped completely to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) over one issue: immigration.
The tragedy for German democracy is that as the SPD withers, the space for extremism grows
The pattern is as predictable as it is devastating. Across Western Europe, traditional left-wing parties have watched in horror as their core constituencies – blue-collar workers, the economically vulnerable, and those in post-industrial regions – have flocked to populist right-wing parties. The reason isn’t mysterious; it is quite obvious. When the working class expresses concerns about illegal migration’s impact on wages, housing and Germany’s reknown social services, they’re met with lectures on integration and humanity – from university-educated party elites who have never set foot in a factory.
Yet the SPD’s leadership seems pathologically incapable of learning from successful counterexamples sitting just 200 miles to the north. Denmark’s Social Democrats under Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen have demonstrated with ruthless clarity how to neutralise the far-right: by adopting stringent immigration policies while maintaining robust social welfare systems. The result? The Danish Social Democrats secured 27.5 per cent in the last parliamentary election in 2022, while their right-wing populist opponents have been reduced to political irrelevance.
The Danish model offers a masterclass in left-wing realpolitik. By acknowledging legitimate public concerns about migration’s impact on social cohesion and welfare sustainability, Frederiksen’s party successfully reclaimed working-class voters without abandoning progressive economic policies. It is arithmetic so simple that even the most ideologically blinkered politician should be able to grasp it: when mainstream parties ignore voter concerns on immigration, those voters don’t change their minds – they change their parties. The SPD’s refusal to acknowledge that the majority of their own voters want an asylum policy overhaul is political malpractice of the highest order.
The irony is particularly bitter when one considers that the SPD’s historic mission was to represent precisely those Germans now flocking to the AfD. Their prized social security system – the jewel in the crown of post-war German social democracy – is perceived by many voters as under threat from uncontrolled migration. When working-class Germans express fears about the sustainability of their welfare state, they’re not exhibiting latent fascism; they’re articulating a pragmatic concern about finite resources.
Denmark’s experience proves that right-wing populists don’t own the immigration issue. For years, Danish right-wing populists dominated the political agenda and pushed other parties rightward on immigration policy. Today, they have virtually no political influence. The difference wasn’t that Danish voters suddenly became more progressive – it was that Denmark’s mainstream left became more responsive to voter concerns.
What makes the SPD’s blindness so infuriating is that the solution to Germany’s far-right surge lies within their grasp, not the CDU’s. While Friedrich Merz’s conservatives flounder between half-hearted imitations of AfD rhetoric and ineffectual centrism, the SPD could strike at the heart of the AfD’s appeal by reclaiming its mantle as the authentic party of the German worker. Instead, they appear determined to follow the path of the French Socialists and British Labour under Corbyn – into electoral oblivion.
The Danish model offers practical lessons that extend far beyond immigration policy alone. By refocusing relentlessly on the concerns of working people – those who go to work daily or receive pensions and simply want to live well in a functioning country – the Danish Social Democrats automatically left less room for fringe debates. Their core philosophy – that citizens in a welfare state have duties as well as rights – should guide the SPD’s approach to social policy reform.
The Danes have implemented concrete measures that would make German progressives blanch: an ‘anti-ghetto policy’ limiting ‘non-Western’ background residents to 30 per cent in troubled neighborhoods; legislation permitting asylum processing in countries outside the EU; and policies allowing for the deportation of refugees back to parts of Syria. These measures are justified on explicitly social democratic grounds – that overly permissive migration policies overburden the state and disproportionately impact lower-income groups. The results speak for themselves: while the Danish Social Democrats lead the second-place liberals by a staggering 14 percentage points, the right-wing Danish People’s party has collapsed from over 20 per cent in 2015 to under 3 per cent today. This is what success looks like.
The existential question for the SPD isn’t whether they can form another grand coalition or secure a ministry here or there. It’s whether they have the intellectual courage to recognise that their current trajectory leads to extinction. The Danish Social Democrats didn’t abandon progressive values; they prioritised the maintenance of the social contract that makes those values sustainable. They recognised that unlimited migration and robust welfare states exist in tension, not harmony.
Germany’s political establishment treats the AfD as a moral aberration rather than a predictable consequence of policy failures. This comfortable delusion allows them to avoid the uncomfortable truth: the AfD exists because mainstream parties have failed to address legitimate concerns. Each percentage point the AfD gains is not evidence of resurging fascism but of establishment malpractice.
The clock is ticking for Germany’s oldest party. Either the SPD will embrace a Danish-style recalibration that acknowledges working-class concerns while maintaining progressive economic policies, or it will continue its slide into irrelevance. The tragedy for German democracy is that as the SPD withers, the space for extremism grows.
For British observers, Germany’s left-wing implosion offers a cautionary tale. Political parties exist to represent voters, not to lecture them. When parties forget this basic truth, voters find alternatives – however unsavory. If the SPD cannot learn this lesson from their Danish counterparts, they may soon find themselves studying it in the political wilderness. The German working class hasn’t abandoned social democracy; social democracy has abandoned them.
What’s particularly striking about the Danish approach is its unapologetic pragmatism. While occasionally crossing the boundaries of polite progressive discourse, Denmark’s Social Democrats have demonstrated that protecting the welfare state sometimes requires uncomfortable decisions. Their policies aren’t adopted from right-wing playbooks but from the recognition that unlimited immigration and comprehensive social benefits exist in fundamental tension.
By implementing measures that would make German SPD politicians reach for their smelling salts – deportations to parts of Syria, offshore asylum processing, strict limits on ethnic concentration in neighborhoods – the Danish left has reclaimed territory once ceded to populists. The result? A dramatic realignment that saw the right-wing Danish People’s party become a political footnote.
This isn’t just a victory for the left; it’s a restoration of functional democracy. The SPD could achieve the same by acknowledging a simple truth: maintaining Germany’s generous welfare state requires a pragmatic approach to who can access it. The Danish lesson is clear – social democracy doesn’t have to choose between winning elections and maintaining its values. But it does need to recognise that protecting the most vulnerable citizens sometimes means making difficult decisions about who those citizens are.
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