D This will come as a surprise to some people: Hamburg saw itself as a “labor party”. FDP ever, was against “monopoly-like accumulation of property in the hands of small groups” and against “private schools that segregate children according to their parents’ status, wealth and creed”. Good: That was in 1946, and since then a lot of water has flowed down the Elbe. And it’s not just the FDP that is no longer what it wanted to be back then, and not just in Hamburg either.
But here, of all places, where one widespread liberals Self-image also takes advantage of the social democracy, where God knows, a cosmopolitanism that not only makes business easier, flutters in a stiff breeze and people like to think of themselves as basically letting each other do things instead of purely regulating them: Here of all places, the first FDP regional association could capsize, and the blame is – money.
Or rather the lack of it: “Two failed election campaigns and high running costs”, wrote these days die Bildthe Elbe Liberals had been “brought to the brink of insolvency”, and there is even talk of a “vicious circle of austerity and a lack of visibility that could affect other regional associations”. According to its own information, the capital letter medium came into possession of “internal papers” according to which it was threatened with insolvency last November.
“Staff costs that are too high and a state office at a political Champions League level are eating up the assets,” we read, and that the base has repeatedly rejected reform proposals from a former state treasurer.
Tumults in the freelancers’ party
Alexander Fröhlich from Elmbach had apparently tried to raise the minimum membership fee: instead of 10 euros, it would then be 15 euros. And what is seriously causing turmoil in the party of democratic freelancers? Last weekend, Fröhlich von Elmbach was said to have had enough, the trained economist resigned from his FDP office, Woman and hunting dog so you may have a little more of him in the future.
The problems he diagnosed remain, the state chairman Finn Ole Ritter is quoted as saying: “No stone can be left unturned so that the party can once again act on a financially secure basis,” and there is also a loan in the mid-five-figure range, offered by the federal FDP – not that things are going well. And The liberals are not at all keen on incurring debt.
Secure. It would be wonderfully ironic if, of all people, the state FDP were to make a pass at Pfeffersacks – and that too because of squabbling over change and an unwillingness to change. Was it always the others who were backlogged in reforms?!
Sure: The FDP’s narrow-track liberalism, which all too often boils down to tax tricks and speed limits, offers little in times when we need to talk about post-growth. But what if a very specific milieu suddenly no longer had a political home? We probably wouldn’t have to expect armed dentists or mobs of tax consultants in the streets – although to be honest, better barricades would be expected from architects.
In times of crisis, the FDP has not been looking for salvation in more community or cushioning social hardships for a long time, quite the opposite. In his last election campaign joked former federal party leader Christian Lindner – isn’t he also a native of Hamburg? – about the Antifa, while on the far right there were apparently a lot of sheep that had gone astray and were brought back home. If their remaining supporters lose the FDP: Where will they turn?
Hamburg’s bourgeoisie has the ability to cope with populism, even if it comes across as really grubby already proven.