German Conservatives Fail After Merkel Joins Virtue-Signaling Outcry Over AfD-Backed Immigration Crackdown Bill

German mainstream politicians and media have presented that the real 'threat' the country is facing is not brutal terror rampages and attacks like those recently seen in Magdeburg and Aschaffenburg (both perpetrated by asylum-seeking migrants), but the fact that Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has been polling better than ever before and having serious national influence as Friedrich Merz - Merkel's successor as leader of the country’s conservatives - seeks to push through tighter immigration controls.

All of this has triggered former German Chancellor Angela Merkel's intervention, given the supposed 'embarrassment' of witnessing the Christian Democrats currently relying on the AfD help to pass the new immigration bill. The conservative CDU-CSU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria) has broken the longstanding taboo of working with the AfD when on Wednesday they together passed a motion calling for a crackdown on new arrivals and strengthened border controls.

Former Chancellor Merkel has blasted Merz. "I believe it is wrong," she began in fresh comments. It marks an unprecedented intervention by the former leader since she stepped down from politics in December 2021. As is custom the former chancellor has been silent for years after leaving power. It appears the intervention worked as the conservatives on Friday have failed to pass the measure. According to the vote and the latest:

• GERMAN CONSERVATIVES FAIL WITH FAR RIGHT-BACKED MIGRATION BILL
• GERMAN LOWER HOUSE REJECTS OPPOSITION'S DRAFT LAW ON TIGHTENING MIGRATION POLICY
• The breakdown: For: 338; Against: 350; Abstentions: 5
• Apart from Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which submitted the immigration bill, three other opposition parties -- the far-right AfD, the pro-business Free Democrats and the far-left BSW -- had signaled their support. Together, they had 372 seats in parliament, more than the 367 required for a majority, and there’s a handful of independents who may also support it.
• BBG: After that result and a moment of shocked silence, the conservative leader Friedrich Merz left the chamber with sunken shoulders, his immigration bill having been unexpectedly defeated. The breakdown of the vote showing which lawmakers might have broken ranks will be an interesting read.
• Early reaction from Chancellor Scholz’s Social Democrats, a post on X from SPD Health Minister Karl Lauterbach: “What a disgrace. The whole maneuver was in vain and only damaged democracy.”

She had used the opportunity to 'remind' everyone there should never be any association whatsoever between the mainstream parties and the AfD. She wagged her finger at Merz for breaching the longstanding "firewall" against the AfD. They are supposed to be shunned politically... but no longer.

"I think it is wrong to no longer feel bound to this proposal, thereby allowing a majority with the votes of the AfD in a vote in the German Bundestag for the first time on 29 January 2025," she wrote on her website. The walls are closing in, and AfD party officials are grabbing the popcorn to enjoy the mainstream fallout and shrieking.

Without doubt, panic is truly setting in, revealed also in how quickly anti-AfD politicians have been in invoking fears of a return to Nazis and the Holocaust:

Centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz charged that Merz's tactical manoeuvre was a breach of his previous promises to shun the AfD and left him "open to the accusation that he is untrustworthy".

Scholz even raised the spectre of Merz, if he wins, one day allowing the AfD into a government -- a scenario that horrifies the mainstream parties in the country still seeking to atone for the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.

"Conservatives who are supporters of Nazis cannot become coalition partners," said the co-leader of the Green Youth, Jakob Blasel. He described that this means under Merz, the "Greens must not enter a coalition with the CDU and CSU." 

And Robert Habeck, the chancellor candidate for the Greens, dramatically declared it a "turning point" in Germany. "Friedrich Merz and the Union have abandoned the consensus of the political center of this house not to make common cause with the extremes," wrote Habeck.

This is all part of the expected 'shock' and 'horror' of witnessing an ascendant AfD spiking the football:

The most quoted response in German media from the AfD since the vote was that of MP Bernd Baumann, who said: “This is truly a historic moment … Mr Merz, you helped bring it about and now you stand here with shaking knees, trembling and apologizing,” he said, before declaring: “Here and now a new epoch begins.”

The now defeated bill sought to give border authorities greater power in turning away migrants and asylum seekers, and would make it easier to deport violators. 

The shrieking over "Nazis" and pro-Kremlin infiltration etc has only intensified given Elon Musk has weighed in strongly in favor of serous immigration reform...

The anti-AfD virtue signaling has continued, with conservative Berlin mayor Kai Wegener, for example, declaring: "With me - you can rely on it - there will never be cooperation or a coalition with the far-right." It's going to become a campaign slogan. Thus they will seek to put the pressing immigration crisis in the background, despite it being of prime concern to a groundswell of the long-suffering German populace.