Sigmar Gabriel, former long-time leader of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), has criticised its recently adopted resolution to strive for a total ban of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD).
In an internal email to party members leaked to German newspaper Tagesspiegel on July 2, Gabriel called the plans for a ban “stupid” and exhorted his former colleagues to instead ask themselves why so many of their voters had turned to the AfD.
“Instead of elevating another doomed attempt to ban the AfD to a political programme, the SPD should rather ask itself why hundreds of thousands of former SPD voters have switched to the AfD?” Gabriel reportedly wrote.
He went on to criticise the highly publicised May 2 report by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) on the AfD that deemed the right-wingers “enemies of the German constitution”.
The report was targeted by experts and challenged in court by the AfD. On May 9, the BfV unexpectedly suspended its classification of the AfD.
Gabriel claimed that the BfV’s report was too weak to justify declaring the AfD in its entirety as inimical to the constitution.
“Then that will not be enough for a ban anyway. An SPD interior minister should know that,” he wrote in reference to Georg Maier, interior minister of the State of Thuringia who recently sent out a newsletter on the planned ban.
Instead of striving senselessly for a complete ban of the AfD, Gabriel suggested pinpointed measures. One idea he reportedly proposed was to go after prominent AfD politician Björn Höcke in Hassia. The SPD should try to have him removed from public service, Gabriel recommended – so that Höcke would lose part of his pension.
Gabriel concluded: “If the SPD doesn’t even try to do that [removing Höcke from public service], it shouldn’t talk too much about banning AfD altogether.
“Instead of such substitute actions, it would be better to finally tackle the political issues that are driving German workers from the SPD to the AfD in droves. However, this requires more courage, commitment, inventiveness and hard work than regurgitating such stupid ban proposals.”
Gabriel led the SPD from 2009 until 2017. From 2005 till 2017 he served as environment minister and the minister of economics under then chancellor Angela Merkel.
In November 2019, hel left politics and has primarily been working as a consultant since then. He is also a board member of several large German companies including Deutsche Bank and Rheinmetall.
