Rowdiness on the parliamentary benches goes back a long way. With the Faragists taking their seats in Westminster, you’d better brace yourself for rougher rhetoric.
And before you remind me of Benjamin Disraeli’s famous quote (asked to withdraw the assertion that half the cabinet were asses, he replied: “Mr Speaker, I withdraw. Half the cabinet are not asses”). I concede that not every right honourable gentleman and lady has been immune to disorderly conduct through the ages.
Judging by German experience, however, a new party in parliament increases the volume. The Greens did when they first entered the Bundestag in the 1980s: “Herr präsident, Sie sind ein Arschloch, mit Verlaub” (Mr president, you are an arsehole, with all due respect”), is what future foreign minister Joschka Fischer told the president of parliament in 1984.
This isn’t to say that the newcomers alone are responsible for disrupting parliamentary etiquette with insults – they also attract them, because denigration and vilification work both ways. Otto Schily, also a Green newbie back then (he later turned Social Democrat), was called “mini-Goebbels” by a Christian Democrat.
Since the AfD’s arrival, though, Ordnungsrufe (calls for order in parliament) have skyrocketed. From 1990-2017 there were only 89. Then, after the far right faction made their debut, the number jumped to 154 in just seven years. In the parliamentary period since 2021, AfD has collected 67 calls to order, leaving the SPD (10) and the Greens (6) trailing behind.
“Warmonger” seems to be a popular term used by AfD – for both chancellor Olaf Scholz and Friedrich Merz, leader of the opposition. “Vaterlandsverräter” (traitor) is another favourite. AfD in turn often attracts the label “Nazis”, or the insinuation that Hitler’s Mein Kampf is on their reading list. Not everyone goes high when AfD goes low.
Personally, I have never been perturbed by the odd political insult – although apparently many Germans complain about a growing lack of manners to the Bundestag’s administration. At least, I thought, a bit of taunting spices up parliamentary debates, and, importantly, it happens face to face. No one’s hiding behind a keyboard on social media.
Additionally, if done well, insults can be quite creative: parliamentary minutes have noted “yapping hamster”, “snoring rooster” and “hospitalised hippo”, as well as less zoological epithets such as “tax dodger”, “red fascist” and “uber-Nazi” and vulgar terms like “Schlappschwanz” (limp dick). Even the G-spot had a one-off appearance, according to the stenographers.
Unrivalled in the art of abuse was the social democrat Herbert Wehner. His calculated affronts are now legendary, and he used them as a ruse to attract the public eye (and away from whichever flawed political project he was involved with). Boor, rascal, comedian, calumniator, dirt-slinger, well-poisoner, hypocrite, toff, chatterbox, half-pint, bottlehead, pimp, wreck, lout and garden gnome is just a sample of his parliamentary vocabulary.
He called Konrad Adenauer “Hitler’s afterbirth”, he shouted “Piet-Cong” at a particularly pious Christian Democrat and, famously, he created the term “Düffel-Doffel” (nonsensical but still pejorative) for chancellor-to-be Helmut Kohl.
In 1979, he told CDU MP Volker Rühe: “Why don’t you leave me alone, you gnome?” Eleven years later, the same Volker Rühe – now CDU secretary-general – would eulogise Wehner as a true democrat.
And here’s what’s bothering me a lot more today than the odd row among the sovereign’s democratic representatives: with AfD a spiteful note has crept through. Nothing like the “Tuck your shirt in, Boris”, that would make the House speaker giggle.
Instead, we get dull and unpleasant AfD-heckling like “disgusting” and “degenerate”, “go ahead and cry”, “you lack the intellect” and “Leave this house!”. And calling a Green trans MP by their former name is just nasty, no matter where you stand on trans issues.
In a (probably futile) attempt to put an end to this, the governing coalition is now aiming at toughening parliamentary rules. Until now, the president of parliament decides whether a €1,000 fine – Ordnungsgeld – should follow after three Ordnungsrufe. In September, new legislation will be passed to automatically punish those who received three calls to order within three session weeks. The fine will be increased to €2,000, and for repeat offenders to €4,000. We’ll see…
Maybe we can soon be able to learn a lesson from how Westminster copes with Reform UK.
