Why Brexit Britain should root for a Merkel landslide

Never mind Eurovision. For Germany, the state election in North Rhine Westphalia on Sunday was the big one – the best indication of how Germans will vote in their national election in four months time. The result was a ‘political earthquake’ according to German media – a humiliation for Martin Schulz’s Social Democrats, and a spectacular victory for Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU. For Merkel, a dead woman walking a year ago, September’s national election now looks like hers to lose. How did she manage this remarkable comeback? And what are the implications for Britain, and the EU?

Yesterday’s result may have taken German pundits by surprise, but Merkel’s support has been growing steadily for some time. After her political nadir in 2015, when she allowed a million refugees into Germany, she looked like a busted flush, losing a state election in Mecklenburg (her own back yard) to a resurgent SPD. However, as The Spectator predicted