Once again we bring Labour Affairs readers news of the developing anti-globalist worker-friendly new left party in Germany. The party did well in the European elections and despite caution about growing too rapidly it is self-confident and optimistic about its future, particularly as it is offering policies that no other German political party wishes to offer, including the so-called Left party ‘Die Linke’. Socialist economic policy, collective security and defence of national interests within a European community committed to collective security is clearly popular with many German voters.

As before, when Sahra Wagenknecht mentions the ‘traffic light coalition’, or just ‘the traffic lights’ she means the current German coalition government of Social Democrats (red), Free Democrats (yellow) and Greens (green).

Extract from the BSW Party Manifesto on Foreign Affairs and Peace.

For a new approach to foreign policy

Our foreign policy stands in the tradition of German Chancellor Willy Brandt and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who countered the thinking and actions of the Cold War with a policy of détente, reconciliation of interests and international cooperation. We fundamentally reject the resolution of conflicts by military means. We oppose the fact that more and more resources are flowing into weapons and war equipment instead of into the education of our children, research into environmentally friendly technologies or our health and care facilities. Nuclear armament and escalating conflicts between nuclear powers put the survival of humanity at risk and must be stopped. We are striving for a new era of détente and new treaties on disarmament and common security. The Bundeswehr has the task of defending our country. It must be adequately equipped for this task. We reject the deployment of German soldiers in international wars as well as their stationing on the Russian border or in the South China Sea.

A military alliance (NATO) whose leading power has invaded five countries in recent years in violation of international law and killed more than 1 million people in these wars, fuels fear and defensive reactions and thus contributes to global instability. Instead of an instrument of power for geopolitical goals, we need a defensive alliance that respects the principles of the UN Charter, strives for disarmament instead of committing to rearmament, and in which the members meet as equals. Europe needs a stable security architecture that should also include Russia in the longer term.

Our country deserves a self-confident policy that focuses on the well-being of its citizens and is based on the understanding that US interests are sometimes very different from our own. Our goal is an independent Europe of sovereign democracies in a multipolar world and not a new bloc confrontation in which Europe is crushed between the USA and the increasingly self-confident new power bloc around China and Russia.

Extracts from June Bulletins.

We are going to change politics in Germany!

Our party has only been around for five months. And now we have achieved over six percent from a standing start – leaving the governing Free Democratic Party with its war-loving top candidate Strack-Zimmermann well behind us. All this in an election in which the competition from other parties was so fierce that it was difficult to find us on the long ballot paper. All this despite the fact that, as a young party, we do not have a well-established apparatus, we swim against the tide and had to fight our way through the courts to participate in important pre-election broadcasts. This is simply fantastic and we would like to thank everyone who made it possible!

Together we have made history and from now on we will be a force to be reckoned with, because together we can and will change our country for the better!

Useful idiots of the arms industry

The traffic light ignores the growing problems in our country, it cannot plug its budget holes, while there are apparently unlimited funds for new weapons. The greatest threat is that this policy could lead us step by step into a major European war. In her speech in the Bundestag on 26.6.2024, Sahra Wagenknecht spoke about useful idiots in the arms industry and called on Chancellor Scholz to finally join forces with Brazil and China for a ceasefire and compromise peace. 

State party conference of the BSW in Potsdam

Last weekend, the “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice” in Brandenburg laid important foundations for a successful state election campaign. At a state party conference in Potsdam, the program for the state election on 22 September was unanimously adopted with minimal changes. The members of the youngest BSW state association elected 61-year-old labor judge Robert Crumbach as their top candidate for the state election with 86 percent of the vote.

In her speech, Sahra Wagenknecht emphasized the signal effect of the Brandenburg election on the traffic light coalition in the federal government and opposed the increasingly narrow corridor of opinion: “It must no longer be the case that opinions that deviate from the mainstream, that have a different position, whether that is on the question of war and peace, whether that was then on the Corona question, whether that is on many other topics, that they are defamed and marginalized in this way. We want there to be an open debate again!”