What to do about Germany's populist right

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  For Germany, it is a red alert.

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  On September 6, the Alternative for Germany, AFD, won 44% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt.

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  A party that employs unrepentant former neo-Nazis and has been labelled extremist by the intelligence service

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  is on the cusp of becoming the first populist right group to run one of Germany's 16 states

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  since 1945. To take office, the AfD still needs allies or defections.

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  That should not blind Germany to the risk.

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  The party was always going to do well in Saxony-Anhalt,

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  which is depopulated, deprived, and in the East, where party loyalties are weak.

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  But in national polls, the AfD now also has a lead of eight points over the centre-right CDU-CSU,

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  led by Friedrich Merz, the Chancellor.

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  A federal election today might require a coalition of every centrist party to keep it from power.

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  Germany's centrists have long thought that a firewall excluding the AfD from coalitions could keep it at bay.

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  But behind this Brandmauer, the party has grown and radicalised, pursuing racist fantasies of remigration,

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  rapprochement with Russia and exit from the European Union and Euro.

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  Its manifesto for Saxony-Anhalt, which called for a radical reshaping of the state's education,

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  culture, media and civil service, proved alarmingly popular.

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