Conservatives head for the extremes: Germany follows the US and UK

Lowdown interview with Annette Dittert,

On this week’s Lowdown I interview the extraordinary Annette Dittert, the only foreign correspondent covering the UK that a British audience has come to know and in some cases love.

In other cases, maybe “love” is not quite the right word. Conservative hacks attacked the London correspondent and bureau chief for ARD, the German public service broadcaster, for her despairing reports on Brexit.

To my mind, their anger told us more about them than Dittert.  It was the rage of Caliban at seeing his face in the mirror.

It was clear to the rest of us that Dittert loved this country and hated what Johnson and Farage had done to it. (Indeed, she loves the UK so much she is applying for British citizenship.)

Now it’s Germany’s turn to see the far right rising, and if there is one country in the world where you do not want to hear that the far right is rising it is Germany.

Annette talks to me about how Germany’s moderate conservatives in the Christian Democratic Union have come to believe that they can appease extremists. They are making exactly the same mistake that David Cameron’s Tory party made with supporters of Brexit and the US Republicans made with Trump.

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Below is a long read from me written after this summer’s race riots, on a threat to the rule of law which deserves far more attention than it receives from traditional media.

Radical right leaders want to be tough on crime, particularly when the alleged criminals are migrants. Yet when their own supporters attack the police and asylum seekers in the UK, or storm Congress in the US, they demand immunity from prosecution.

I am not a great one for throwing the “fascist” label around. But the defence of the lawlessness of mobs on the streets goes back to the fascist past

(Piece is paywalled but with free trial.)

The far right wants to be above the law

Donald Trump and Lee Anderson demand impunity for their thugs

Donald Trump and Nigel Farage meeting at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference [Cpac] CREDIT: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour

Fake outrage accompanies fake news. As soon as you use the term “far right” to describe the thugs who threaten us and the politicians who egg them on, you are denounced.