Selling margarine as butter: the failure of Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW and the pitfalls of “left conservatism”

Political parties usually move slowly—adjusting across election cycles, not within months. But in Germany, Sahra Wagenknecht’s new party launched in January 2024 – Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht - Für Vernunft und Gerechtigkeit (BSW) – managed to compress almost an entire party life cycle into a single year.

Initially, the party hit the ground running. Within nine months it had won 6.2% of the vote in the June 2024 European parliament elections, and performed strongly in state elections across three different Länder in eastern Germany. In two states, it entered regional government; in the third, it entered initial coalition negotiations but eventually dropped out.

In a political landscape increasingly fragmented by new parties, BSW’s rapid rise was striking. Its platform is a unique mix: a left-wing economic agenda (higher minimum wages, support for small and medium-sized businesses and pensioners) paired with conservative cultural values, including scepticism towards gender-inclusive language, immigration, and trans rights. This unusual blend earned it the ‘left-conservative’ label—still a rare positioning in modern European politics.[1]

Beyond immigration, BSW also staked out a provocative stance on foreign policy, particularly regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Wagenknecht argued Germany should cease military support for Ukraine and push for peace negotiations, even if that meant Ukraine conceding territory. In Eastern Germany—where pro-Russian sentiment, shaped by GDR-era legacies, runs deep—this message resonated. It was more than just a foreign policy position; it symbolised broader discontent with Berlin’s approach to current domestic affairs generally. While sympathies with Ukraine were fading, and lower to begin with in Eastern Germany, the policy position on the Russian invasion served as a proxy for many other issues – dissatisfaction with refugee politics, energy insecurity, and an increasing sense of precarity, again most notable in Eastern Germany.

Having a leader, Sahra Wagenknecht, who was born in East Germany when it was the German Democratic Republic only added to the party’s appeal. An appealing yet polarising figure, she entered politics through the Left Party (Die Linke), rising to national prominence as its parliamentary leader. Importantly, Wagenknecht is not, and crucially was not, a niche figure in German politics. She was and is a frequent guest on talk shows and most prominently, while still a member of the Left Party, clashed with her own party on immigration during the so-called “refugee crisis”. This notably added to her public appeal; despite the fact that she was still a member of a very progressive party, she had visibly distanced herself from their politics on cultural issues – to the point where she published a book in 2022 criticising ‘lifestyle left’ politics which she contrasted unfavourably with politics for the ‘hardworking normal’ people. When she finally left the party in 2023 few were surprised. Many of her longstanding positions—staunchly critical of neoliberalism, pro-redistribution, yet anti-immigration—were the building blocks of her newly formed, eponymously named, BSW party.

Initially, the party made waves and the party's early momentum was undeniable. Polls in late 2024 showed BSW approaching 8% nationally, astonishingly impressive numbers for such a young party and enough to cross the 5% threshold to enter the Bundestag. Yet in the end, it narrowly missed—falling short of the 5% threshold by fewer than 10,000 votes.

So what went wrong?

I have identified three key issues.

First, the party's central issue—Ukraine—simply didn’t dominate the Bundestag campaign. Most mainstream parties avoided the subject altogether, wary of stirring public anxiety about potential military escalation. As Der Spiegel noted, parties like the SPD and CDU ‘would have preferred not to talk about Ukraine at all’. This was a major problem for BSW, whose early success in the East had relied heavily on Ukraine as their key mobilising issue.

Second, and perhaps more crucially, BSW became a victim of its own success. By entering regional governments, the anti-establishment party was suddenly thrust into establishment roles. What made it appealing—its outsider status and populist critique—faded quickly. In the eyes of many voters, BSW had ‘normalised’ far too fast. BSW’s transformation from insurgent to insider was especially damaging in a context where much of its appeal rested on a rejection of the government. BSW was seen by some of its own members and even Wagenknecht herself as compromising too early.

Wagenknecht was sceptical of joining the state government in Thuringia, afraid that entering this government would force her to compromise, especially on her previously key mobilising issue Ukraine. However, state party leader of BSW in Thuringia, Katja Wolf, took a more realpolitik stance, ultimately driving coalition negotiations. This caused the first visible rift in the leadership, only a few months after the founding. While intra-party dissent is never a vote winner, it is particularly brutal for a party that was a) only founded a few months prior, and b) built around a single person and her policies. The party’s entire leadership structure and organisational set up is hierarchical and top-down – clearly a result of Wagenknechts many years of fighting among the Left leadership. However, even this structure couldn’t ensure her total control.

Third, an important issue for the party, and a topic widely associated with left-conservative parties, is immigration. However, BSW was not able to credibly score on this issue. Key supporters and members later admitted the party had fallen into dehumanising rhetoric on deportation, chasing an imaginary mainstream consensus on immigration rather than distinguishing itself. Further, when even Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the progressive government coalition appears on the cover of the weekly news periodical Der Spiegel with the quote “We have to deport on a large scale” (“Wir müßen im großen Stil abschieben”), the question really remains what point of difference a left-conservative party is providing when much of the political spectrum is already moving closer to the radical right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in both policy and in discourse.

What lessons does this hold for ‘left-conservative’ strategies in Britain?

In theory, the appeal of ‘left-conservatism’ is obvious. Many voters hold left-wing economic views but conservative social values. Data from the British Election Study, for instance, shows that while many Reform UK voters in 2024 shared socially authoritarian and conservative views, their economic preferences were mixed: 42% opposed redistribution, but 30% supported it.

However, one must ask: who votes for Reform because of their economic policies? No one. The BES data shows that only 2% of people said they voted Reform for its tax policy, while 34% cited immigration. This is the crux of the issue: voters may support a redistributionist agenda and want stricter immigration—but when forced to choose, they go with the party that ‘own’ their priority issue. In most cases, that’s the radical right. BSW didn’t ‘own’ immigration; it merely echoed the far right’s framing without having the same credibility or history. And while it tried to carve out Ukraine as a unique issue, that ground became more crowded as figures like Trump and others began pushing similar messages.

Could there be a space for Labour to adopt a “left-conservative” strategy of the kind currently advocated by Blue Labour? As Sophie Stowers argues, Reform is different from many other examples of successful radical right-wing parties, in the sense that some have adopted, whether purely performatively or not, relatively left-leaning economic positions. Geert Wilders, leader of the radical right Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, for instance, has successfully linked immigration to issues of housing, infrastructure and economic security, turning his anti-immigration platform into a pitch for social investment. The AfD in Germany, too, has supported the minimum wage, justifying this with wage pressure due to “mass migration”.[2] In France, Marine Le Pen has become markedly more interventionist over the years, rebranding the National Rally as a party that champions social assistance for the poorest.

This shift reflects a broader pattern: in many parts of Europe, populist right parties blur their position on economics to build a more coherent narrative of protection—against globalisation, immigration, and precarity. In contrast, Reform UK’s messaging remains largely Thatcherite on economic issues – although Nigel Farage recently argued in a recent interview that his economic policies share considerable overlap with Corbyn’s. (This again highlights the flexibility of the far right when it comes to economics.)

With growing pressure on Starmer to “close off avenues” to the far right by adopting tougher immigration policies, Blue Labour presents an analysis that mirrors the sentiments expressed by Sahra Wagenknecht in her 2022 book, along with a strategy that closely resembles her BSW movement. At the core of this approach—voiced in trade union meetings and party congresses—is a form of small ‘c’ conservatism, a nostalgic appeal to the “good old days.” However, rather than offering a clear alternative to the radical right, these left-conservative movements risk legitimising some of its core narratives. While they claim not to replicate the right’s hardline stance on immigration or traditional values, they nonetheless reinforce a cultural politics steeped in exclusion, nostalgia, and reaction. In positioning themselves as the “authentic” voice of the working class, they reduce complex social challenges to a narrow set of cultural grievances—offering not structural solutions, but a softened echo of the very forces they claim to oppose.

The wider challenge of ‘left-conservatism’

A 2006 Economist headline once declared: “Diversity or Welfare State—Pick One.” The modern, cynical update goes: “Left-wing party? Pick one: Diversity or Reason”. The joke reflects a deeper tension. The original Economist argument implied that generous welfare states depend on high levels of social cohesion, which can be strained by large-scale immigration or rapidly shifting cultural norms. Today’s version riffs on a similar dilemma: While traditional leftist politics were grounded in material issues—class, labour, redistribution—today’s left is increasingly split along a cultural axis. Parties can be in full agreement on taxing the rich, expanding the state, or even nationalising industries—but still be at total odds over immigration, gender policy, or environmental action. “Diversity” here becomes a catch-all for expansive social agendas focused on race, gender, sexuality, and immigration—often framed in moral or emotional terms. “Reason,” by contrast, signals a discomfort with what is perceived as irrational progressive dogmatism, but in practice frequently defaults to a politics of nostalgia. The challenge for many left parties today isn’t balancing economic and social policies, but bridging this cultural divide. Denmark’s Social Democrats titled their platform “Just and Realistic”; Germany’s BSW went with “Reason and Justice.” And, while many might not agree with the policy, there is a real demand for this version of leftism.

However, as BSW shows, combining existing positions into a new package isn’t enough. These parties don’t bring new issues to the table—they simply remix the old ones. That limits their ability to generate credibility or attract loyal voters. A redistribution-minded anti-immigration voter is still more likely to stick with a party like AfD or Reform that ‘owns’ the issue they care most about—even if they diverge on economics. Left-conservative parties thus face a unique challenge. Without a truly distinct issue, or a deeply trusted brand, their space in the political spectrum is precarious. Charismatic leadership helps, as BSW demonstrated, but even that has its limits.

The federal election result does not necessarily mean that Wagenknecht and the BSW is doomed to fail. Its overall performance remains remarkable (just as a reminder, when the AfD first joined the German political spectrum, it also fell short of the threshold), and it remains unclear what the party’s future holds. Nor does it prove that a left-conservative party does not have a raison d'être in the party system. What it does show, however, is that these parties are not the ultimate solution when it comes to the radical right. When BSW lost its novelty and outsider sheen, there was little left to distinguish it. With any new party, it takes time to build credibility. With left-authoritarian parties, it will take a lot more than time to prove to voters why they should choose margarine over butter.

Sarah Wagner is a Lecturer in Quantitative Political Science at Queen’s University Belfast.

[1] While the BSW is the first successful left-conservative party in Germany, other countries have parties that provide a similar package. For example, the Netherlands, where the Socialist Party (SP) argues that migrants should assimilate, a sentiment that is rarely echoed amongst radical left parties. In Greece, the Communist Party (KKE) has a very left-wing economic position on taxation and redistribution but also a record of voting against same-sex marriage. Contrary to BSW and SP, KKE actually supports immigration and shows us a different understanding of conservatism.  

[2] An important caveat here is that many of these claims are not found in the actual manifestos. In the 2025 AfD manifesto for example, the party wants to provide significant tax relief for higher and highest incomes, while providing little to no relief for lower and middle income earners according to a study by the ZEW (Centre for European Economic Research).