In January 2024, an earthquake shook the political Left in Germany. Sahra Wagenknecht, a prominent member of far-left Die Linke (The Left), split from the party and formed the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, BSW). The BSW, which advocates a programme mixing social policies with a strong antiimmigration stance, was ostensibly created with the intention of “saving democracy” by fighting the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) on its own turf. Less than a year after its formation, the party has already managed to make a name for itself and is now seen as an unmistakable part of the German political landscape.  

With the rise of the far right across Europe, we are witnessing a realignment of the political landscape, influenced by the growing popularity of authoritarian, anti-liberal parties. The normalisation of the far right has largely been achieved by centre-right parties. However, some left-wing parties have also turned to ideas and policies commonly associated with the opposite end of the political spectrum, moving towards what might be called “conservative socialism”. This political current combines socialist economics, anti-immigration views, scepticism towards minority rights (including sexual and gender minorities), and anti-elite populist rhetoric. 

Why has Sahra Wagenknecht seemingly broken with her own radical left-wing roots to embrace the zeitgeist? According to historian and researcher Thorsten Holzhauser, “One answer could be that she has always been conservative in a certain sense. Her conservatism in the 1990s was a conservatism that tried to preserve the old orthodox ideology of the East German state.”  

The BSW’s ideology is unique compared to many left-wing parties in Western Europe, as the party is directly rooted in eastern Germany’s communist past through its leader. Wagenknecht began her career in East Germany, and a remnant of this can be seen, for example, in her controversial relationship with Russia. To some extent, this is also true of Die Linke, the party from which the BSW emerged, which has been torn over what to do about Russia and the war in Ukraine.  

Today, Wagenknecht’s conservatism is expressed in controversial arguments not unlike those of the extreme right: against immigration, minority rights, and “urban elites”. “She is convinced that the Left can’t compete against the far right without changing its approach to migration politics,” Holzhauser explains. “That is, of course, a strategic argument, but it is also an ideological argument: she believes that migration is fundamentally problematic as it brings a lot of challenges to Western societies.” 

According to Holzhauser, Wagenknecht sees immigration as the greatest challenge for the working classes, as they are the ones that pay the price of globalisation. The fight against immigration is therefore a way to reconnect with this traditional left-wing constituency, with whom today’s parties have supposedly lost touch.¹

Why has Sahra Wagenknecht seemingly broken with her own radical left-wing roots to embrace the zeitgeist?

The election results achieved by the BSW are undeniable proof of its growing appeal. In the European elections in June 2024, six months after its foundation, the party won 6.2 per cent of the vote, more than twice as much as Die Linke. It performed even better in the recent German state elections – in Saxony (11.8 per cent) and Thuringia (15.8 per cent), but also in Brandenburg (13.5 per cent), where its prospects seemed less favourable. Its success at the polling booth has made Wagenknecht a “kingmaker”, at least in the east of the country: if the other parties want to form coalitions without the far right, they will have to consider the participation of the BSW, giving the new party considerable political power.  

But is the party succeeding in drawing voters away from the AfD? “In part this has worked, but not as much as [Wagenknecht] would have liked,” argues Holzhauser. In the recent regional elections, the BSW primarily gained voters from Die Linke – fracturing the German Left – but also from mainstream parties. “[Wagenknecht] has also gained voters from the AfD, […] which she argues is the main point: to get those voters back to the democratic parties. But, well, it’s not that many.” Meanwhile, the AfD was highly successful in the same elections, gaining 32.8 per cent of the vote in Thuringia and 30.6 per cent in Saxony.  

Holzhauser believes that Sahra Wagenknecht’s new vehicle will have little ability to prevent the AfD from gaining seats. “My theory would be that the existence of a party like [Wagenknecht’s] is not really stopping the far right and the anti-immigration discourse; it is strengthening these discourses.” Nevertheless, it has carved out a new niche in the German political landscape: “Essentially, it is a new alternative to the Alternative for Germany,” he claims.  

Beware the fall  

In contrast to the successes experienced by the BSW in Germany, in Bulgaria, the conservative socialist approach has accompanied – or even contributed to – a decline into irrelevance for the country’s socialist party.  

According to members of Bulgarian left-wing feminist organisation LevFem, Korneliya Ninova, who was elected as leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) in 2016, oversaw the party’s shift away from socio-economic issues to the defence of “traditional Bulgarian values”, branding this approach “conservative socialism”.²

As a result, “over the past six years, the [BSP] – the only nominally left-wing party in the current parliament – has taken an openly right-wing stance on issues related to gender, LGBTQI+ rights, and migration, but also on certain social and economic rights,” including those of the most vulnerable and members of the Roma community, they explain. 

Thanks to this shift, the BSP is currently in line with and actively contributes to Bulgaria’s predominantly right-wing political landscape, made up of a mix of neo-liberal, clientelist, and ultra-conservative forces. For example, the party lent its support to a highly controversial law banning LGBTQI+ “propaganda” in schools proposed by the far-right Vazrazhdane (Revival) party. In spite of serious political instability in Bulgaria, which has seen the country face seven parliamentary elections in only four years, the law was successfully passed by a large majority in August 2024.  

A serious challenge posed by conservative socialism is its blurring of the line between Left and Right.

However, this has not translated into success at the ballot box for BSP. In recent years, the party has suffered a series of electoral defeats that have seen it lose a great deal of support, dropping from 27 per cent in 2017 to just 7 per cent in June 2024. Following the June election, the BSP underwent a leadership crisis, and Korneliya Ninova was ousted from power. In the 27 October snap parliamentary elections, the BSP − United Left coalition won 7.32 per cent of the vote.  

In addition to the BSP, the LevFem representatives also mention other “nominally leftwing formations that defend some good socioeconomic positions but are otherwise extremely pro-capitalist and reactionary”. The range of classifications used to sketch out the Bulgarian political landscape hides a more worrying truth. “Describing [it] as ‘pro-Russian’, ‘populist’, ‘illiberal’, and so on simply covers up the fact that there isn’t a strong and visible Left.”  

The history of the Bulgarian Socialists is unique, and the party’s shift to the right began decades before the current crisis. But the catastrophic decline it suffered under Ninova’s leadership in recent years should serve as a cautionary tale for left-wing parties who are considering abandoning their core values – or what is left of them.  

The trap of definition  

A serious challenge posed by conservative socialism is its blurring of the line between Left and Right. Its disregard of traditional socialist concepts and values can make the supposedly left-wing parties that adopt this approach unrecognisable as such. Slovak prime minister Robert Fico’s SMER – Sociálna demokracia (Direction – Social Democracy) is a perfect example.  

SMER was founded in 1999 as a split from the Strana demokratické levice (Party of the Democratic Left, SDL). SMER initially defined itself as a “third-way” party; it then adopted the social-democratic label after absorbing the SDL and other leftist parties in the early 2000s. Since then, the party has become more conservative than socialist. SMER has expanded its links with the far right over the years, both by forming political coalitions with far-right parties and by aligning itself with its racist and Islamophobic views, anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric, and penchant for conspiracy theories.  

According to Martin Makara, a political commentator and PhD candidate at the University of Prešov, Robert Fico has made a point of distinguishing between “Slovak” and “Western” social democracy. “He repeatedly emphasises that ‘Slovak social democracy’ [a confusing mix of socialist economics, strong nationalist sentiments, and social conservatism] is not interested in LGBTI rights, drug legalisation, or gender issues, but rather in social policies such as the minimum wage,” explains Makara. “Despite such claims, however, SMER has achieved no significant systemic social progress, even during its term of single-party government between 2012 and 2016.”  

In March 2018, following mass protests sparked by the murders of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, a number of people close to Fico were charged and convicted, and he was forced to resign. In an attempt to remain relevant, Fico embraced extremist and far-right positions, launched stinging attacks on progressive politics, and called for a return to stability after a troubled transition period. This strategy proved successful. In September 2023, SMER won the parliamentary election with 23 per cent of the vote. Since the party’s re-election, the country has taken an even more authoritarian path, with the police, judiciary, and media purged of dissident voices – a downward spiral that is worrying not only for the minorities regularly targeted by SMER, but for Slovak society as a whole.  

Europe’s immigration policy laboratory  

The example of the Social Democrats in Denmark shows that the influence of the conservative socialist approach is not limited to domestic politics; it can also be felt far beyond national borders.  

For many years, Denmark has been both heavily criticised and praised for its tough immigration policies, which have gained a degree of fame – and infamy – since Social Democrat Mette Frederiksen took over as prime minister in 2019. So much so, in fact, that the Danish approach has been copied by other European states.  

Left-wing parties do not engage with far-right ideas by force – they choose to do so.

Michelle Pace is a professor at Roskilde University in Denmark. She has worked extensively on the history of immigration in Denmark and will soon publish Un-Welcome to Denmark: The Paradigm Shift and Refugee Integration. In her view, the story begins much earlier. Denmark has a long history of pioneering legal frameworks when it comes to immigration. For years, its Aliens Act of 1983 was considered to be Europe’s most liberal. Over time, national attention shifted to integration problems, Pace says. The real change came in the 2000s, she explains, “when Denmark became a clear hardliner on immigration policies. It introduced restrictive measures through frequent legislative changes to its Aliens Act, including on the criteria for the expulsion of ‘aliens’.”  

“In February 2019, the Danish parliament passed a ‘paradigm shift’ asylum bill. The emphasis now moved from refugees’ integration to the proposition that they should only be in Denmark temporarily and return ‘home’ as soon as possible,” continues Pace. The concept of integration gave way to repatriation and return. The law was supported by the conservative governing coalition as well as the extreme right and the Social Democrats, who were in opposition at the time. 

To understand the Danish Social Democrats’ support for a tough immigration policy, Pace explains, is to understand the rise to power of the current prime minister, Mette Frederiksen. Frederiksen won the leadership of the Danish Social Democrats in 2015 after the party lost power in that year’s election. By realigning the Social Democrats to the left on economics and to the right on immigration, she managed to secure the 2019 and 2022 general elections. “Mette Frederiksen’s strategy on immigration policy has been a clear effort to outflank the populist right. This is how her ruling Social Democrats have come to adopt one of the harshest immigration and refugee policies in the world,” explains Pace. For the party, supporting a generous welcome policy means betraying the working class. Perhaps more importantly, it means threatening the stability of the famous Danish welfare system by providing benefits to people it perceives as “outsiders”.  

Frederiksen’s various successes have led her to defend her approach to the Social Democrats in the European Parliament, arguing that, in Michelle Pace’s words, “her hard line on crime and immigration was popular with ‘traditional, poorer left-wing voters’.”  

Denmark’s asylum policy, which Pace says was inspired by those of Australia and Israel, has been used as inspiration by the United Kingdom and Austria. “As a result, Denmark’s harsh migration regime, its differential exclusion and inclusion practices, and its internal frontiers have become the norm rather than the exception.”  

Normalisation is not inevitable  

In a political climate where the lines between political groupings are becoming increasingly porous, what can progressive parties do to remain relevant without compromising their values?  

“If the Left does not want to be hijacked by authoritarians and conservatives, it needs to be present within communal-level politics and vigorously address the majority of working and middle-class voters, offering them concrete solutions to their everyday problems,” argues Martin Makara, underlining that this does not require abandoning the defence of minorities. More broadly, “[Left-wing parties should] interpret the rapidly changing world, reasonably explain it, and provide readily usable and accessible orientation in it for its actual or potential voters.”  

According to Michelle Pace, “The strategy taken by the Danish Social Democrats to win the 2019 election […] is not a viable strategy for socialdemocratic parties moving forward.” While centre-right parties may benefit from adopting right-wing populist strategies, the utility of adopting the same strategy is less obvious for social democrats. Instead, Pace argues, they should focus on maintaining their traditional support for the welfare state, liberalising legal immigration, and showing the leadership that European voters are yearning for.  

For Hedwig Giusto, senior research fellow at the Foundation for European Progressive Studies and editor-in-chief of The Progressive Post, immigration represents an easy target for politicians looking to divert attention or to present convenient scapegoats for their shortcomings. “As for socialists in some European member states, I am afraid they have been ‘caught in the stream’,” she says. According to Giusto, changing the dominant narrative around immigration is difficult, and going with the stream is easier than challenging it. “It has been proven over and over in European politics that if voters can choose between the ‘real’ Right and the parties who just mock the Right’s political proposals, voters will prefer the original, not the copy,” she warns. For Giusto, European socialists should stand up for their values and ensure that they are reflected in the policies they promote.  

While these intentions are laudable, they may be difficult to implement in the current mainstream political climate, which is heavily influenced by the actions of radical rightwing populists. As a result of this influence, the ideological positioning of Europe’s Socialists is currently hard to reconcile with the policies they defend. Robert Fico’s SMER was suspended from the Party of European Socialists (PES) for a second time in 2023 – but only when he announced that his party was going into coalition with the far right. The Bulgarian Socialist Party, however, remains a member. Meanwhile, members of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the new Pact on Migration and Asylum earlier this year, further highlighting the dissonance between the group’s ideas and its actions.  

But as Katy Brown, Aurelien Mondon, and Aaron Winter argue, the “mainstream” is a constructed and fluid notion built by all of its composite parts. While the far right’s role in the radicalisation of the political environment has to be acknowledged, “the overwhelming focus on this actor serves to obscure the considerable agency of its mainstream counterparts.” According to the three researchers, mainstream actors still have considerable power over what is considered normal and what is not. Left-wing parties do not engage with far-right ideas by force – they choose to do so.

In the end, it is true that a shift to the right may bring electoral gains for left-wing parties, in specific cases. But arguments portraying conservative socialism as the saviour of left wing politics – and even democracy – are deeply wrong-headed. While this approach can have a remarkable electoral impact, it can also serve to fracture, discredit, and dissolve the Left, as well as normalise far-right discourse, destroying respect for human rights, for minorities, and for the electorate in general.  

By participating in the normalisation of radical right-wing populism, conservative socialist parties raise doubts about their ultimate goals. Are they actively fighting the far right, or are they merely accompanying its rise to power?

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1. The BSW is not alone in its focus on immigration, however. Germany’s ruling “traffic light” coalition (consisting of the SPD, the FDP, and the Greens) – faced with a steady decline in popularity and mounting pressure from the Right and the far right – has also taken up the issue in recent months.  ↩︎
2. That said, LevFem traces the BSP’s support for conservative policies back to the late 1970s and early 1980s and the days of the Bulgarian Communist Party, which was succeeded by the Socialist Party. ↩︎