After a weekend party congress mired by left-wing attacks which saw hundreds arrested, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has voted to adopt their first full political manifesto.
Established in 2013, the party has until this point run limited political programmes befitting a small single-issue party, but their growing prominence in the light of the migrant crisis has necessitated a full manifesto.
Voting on a full range of governmental areas of influence from defence, to the economy, to the environment, and to the migrant crisis, voters now have a clear picture of what a low tax, traditionalist AfD government would look like after the 2017 general elections.
Perhaps most prominent among the points in the AfD’s new manifesto are those concerning the relationship between Germany and Muslims, and the migrant crisis, given the attention given to these points by Germany’s mainstream media.
Featuring prominently in coverage are remarks by party deputy chairman Beatrix von Storch, whose statement “Islam does not belong to Germany” has been voted on to become official party doctrine. The statement itself is a direct rebuttal to remarks made by present chancellor Angela Merkel when she said at a solidarity rally in Berlin immediately after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks: “Islam belongs to Germany”.
Also entered into the manifesto is the position that Islam in its traditional, or Orthodox form is incompatible with the German constitution and freedom of religion laws because it holds that Islam is the only true faith and that all others are infidels.
The manifesto calls for a ban on minarets, the call to prayer, and the introduction of a French-style ban on Muslim head coverings including the burqa and niqab.
On mass migration itself, the manifesto is clear — skilled migrants with a “high willingness to integrate” are welcome, but other migration is to be strictly controlled. Under an AfD government, Germany would build a Hungarian style border fence — already proven to be extremely effective in ending illegal border incursions — and foreign criminals would be expelled.
The manifesto will say: “Unregulated asylum immigration harms Germany”.
In other areas the AfD are perhaps even more radical than their migration policy. The party would slash taxes, removing inheritance tax altogether, and give the German people a referendum on their ongoing membership of the Euro single currency.
Perhaps most radical of all is the call for the European Union to be broken up as a political entity and to return to its old form as a trading bloc, becoming again an Economic Community. Should the bloc survive as it is today, the party will oppose moves to allow Turkey to join.
Opposition to the Euro is the policy on which AfD was originally formed, before it gained mass recognition and growing support from opposing unlimited migration to Germany.
Other policies will include bringing back conscription for German men, ending the licence fee and abolishing the state funded television broadcasters, and ending the promotion of other families above the traditional model of “the family of father, mother and children”.
Mass-circulation centrist broadsheet Die Welt reports prominently the comments of left wing politicians who have called the party “two faced”, or hailing from the past. One member of Germany’s centre-right CSU party said of the AfD’s leader Frauke Petry and the new programme: “Ms. Petry’s dreams of a government participation has already failed because because no other democratic party would work with her”.
Although the other political parties may treat AfD with some suspicion, there is a growing body of evidence that Frauke Petry’s policies chime with many ordinary Germans. Breitbart London has reported on recent research which has found that in polls, the majority of Germans report being “scared” of so-called ‘refugees’. Four fifths of Germans want a return to proper border controls.
In new research reported today by Germany’s Die Welt, 51 per cent of Germans were shown to be in favour of banning the headscarf in schools, with only 30 per cent against the ban. Among all Germans, members of the AfD were most likely to support the ban, while Green party members were the least.
AfD’s party conference where they adopted their new manifesto was subject to protests and attacks by hard-left ‘black bloc’ activists, who formed human chains around the conference centre to prevent party members going in. Police were forced to deploy pepper spray and water cannon after activists threw rocks, flares, and fireworks at officers as they escorted AfD members into the building.
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