Berlin, the city of currywurst and bureaucratic overachievement, has done it again. In a stunning display of Germanic efficiency, the domestic intelligence service has announced that there are now 60,000 far-right extremists lurking in the Fatherland. Sixty. Thousand. That’s not a political movement, that’s a medium-sized music festival, only with more jackboots and less techno.
Let’s let that figure marinade in your gin-soaked brain for a moment. 60,000 people who believe that the greatest threat to civilisation is the existence of multiculturalism, immigrants, and perhaps the very concept of fun. This number is up by over 14% from last year, which means that while the rest of us were worrying about mortgage rates and the price of avocados, the far right was having a recruitment drive that would make a Mormon missionary weep with envy.
Now, our beloved United Kingdom, ever the plucky sidekick in the drama of European security, has reaffirmed its security pact with Germany. Because nothing says “we’ve got your back” quite like a nation that can barely govern itself promising to help another nation handle its homegrown lunatics. The UK’s security apparatus, no doubt fresh from not predicting the last three terrorist attacks, has pledged to share intelligence and best practices on combating extremism. This is rather like a man who has just set fire to his own house offering fire safety advice to a neighbour.
The irony is so thick you could spread it on a Brötchen. The UK, a country where the far right once burned down a hotel housing asylum seekers and where a former prime minister compared Muslim women to letterboxes, is now clapping Germany on the back and saying, “Don’t worry, chaps, we’ll sort this out together.” Meanwhile, the British government continues to fund schemes that promise to “counter extremism” while simultaneously stoking culture wars with the enthusiasm of a tabloid editor on deadline.
But let’s not be churlish. The numbers are terrifying. 60,000 people who are ready to trade in democracy for a strongman and a vague sense of national grievance. That’s enough to fill Wembley Stadium (if you leave out the VIP section for the corporate ghouls). It’s enough to make you wonder: what exactly are they doing while the rest of us are tweeting about Bake Off? Are they having meetings? Learning to march in sync? Practising their angry stares in the mirror? Because someone is doing something right, and it is absolutely terrifying.
The German authorities, to their credit, are not mucking about. They’ve arrested members of a group that was planning to kidnap the health minister and overthrow the government. Yes, the health minister. Because nothing says “revolution” quite like taking hostage the man responsible for your COVID recovery app. The plot was foiled, but the sheer absurdity of it all suggests we are now living in a Tom Clancy novel written by a committee of drunk monkeys.
And so, as the UK and Germany link arms and promise to be vigilant, we must ask: what does security even mean in an age where your neighbour might be stockpiling weapons and radical websites? The security pact is a fine piece of paper, but paper never stopped a bullet or a bad idea. The real battle is for the hearts and minds of the disaffected, and right now, the extremists are winning because they offer certainty in a world that has none. They offer a simple story: immigrants are the problem, strong leaders are the solution. It’s a lie, but it’s a comfortable lie, and comfort is a powerful drug.
So here’s to our Special Relationship with Germany. May it be as effective as our other Special Relationship, the one with the United States, where we follow them into wars and then wonder why we’re being shot at. The future is bright. It’s also armed and angry. Cheers.
