After the break with Sahra Wagenknecht, the Left Party wants to look forward and focus on political content. The goal: a left with a future, even if without a parliamentary group.
After the departure of Sahra Wagenknecht and her followers, the Left wants to gain a new profile in economic and climate policy.
“Today we have given the starting signal for a left with a future,” said party leader Martin Schirdewan after a strategy conference in Berlin. However, it is no longer assumed that the Bundestag faction will continue to exist.
“This parliamentary group is politically dead,” said its chairman Dietmar Bartsch, with a view to the fact that the resignation of Wagenknecht and the MPs who support her and their announcement that they are leaving the parliamentary group will foreseeably fall below the minimum number for the parliamentary group’s strength. Although the next steps will only be discussed in the regular meeting of the MPs on Tuesday, it is clear: “There will be no parliamentary group in the near future.”
No more “debilitating self-employment”
Nevertheless, Bartsch continued to emphasize that the Left will continue to be active in the Bundestag and represent left-wing politics even without parliamentary group status. There will be joint action again. “The time of paralyzing self-preoccupation must be over.” It is expected that the Left will try to achieve the status of a group in the Bundestag, which would, however, have fewer rights and financial resources than the previous group.
Wagenknecht and nine other members of the Bundestag declared their departure from the Left around two weeks ago and announced their goal of building a rival party. Before the European elections and the important East German state elections in the east in 2024, the Left is now trying to regain its footing and leave poor election results behind it.
Content and unity
To do this, it relies on content – and unity. “You see the party today in great unity,” said party leader Schirdewan after the strategy discussions. The traffic light is getting out the “cutting hammer” and “slavishly” sticking to the debt brake.
According to the paper, everyone with an income of up to 4,000 euros gross per month should now receive the “social climate money” of 200 euros per month proposed by the Left. Nothing specific is said about financing. This also applies to the demanded “largest investment program in the history of the Republic” in industry, energy and transport. The paper simply repeats the call for abandoning the debt brake and for redistribution.
According to the Left’s ideas, an “industrial foundation” financed by the federal government should specifically take over shares in important companies and protect critical infrastructure such as refineries, pipelines, energy storage or ports from foreign takeovers. The paper also calls for financial aid for companies to convert to more climate-friendly production and low energy prices for industrial companies.
The left-wing leaders Schirdewan and Wissler are looking for a strategy for their party.
“We do not have any refugee problem”
Co-chair Janine Wissler also sharply criticized the federal government’s course against irregular migration. “All this talk of upper limits and border controls doesn’t solve a single problem. What we actually need is better financing for municipalities,” she demanded, citing investments in affordable housing and schools. “We don’t have a refugee problem, we have a distribution problem in this country.”
With this, the left is trying to get back on the offensive. The wrangling over Wagenknecht paralyzed the party for months, and after a series of electoral defeats in the federal states, it is also politically devastated. For many, it was almost a relief when Wagenknecht announced that she was founding the club and at the same time that she was leaving the party. Nine deputies followed her. The “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance” is expected to result in the founding of a new party in 2024.