my guest is senior md mp peter boehringer. but is his party too extreme to be a serious contender for national power? peter boehringer in berlin, welcome to hardtalk. hello, stephen, and thank you for having me again. it's a pleasure to have you on the show. now, it seems almost certain — not quite official yet, but almost certain — that germans will vote in national elections in february 2025. that poses a challenge for your afd party.

how ambitious are you? what are your expectations for your performance in this national election? the official polling numbers are 18 to 19% on a federal level. obviously very different in the east compared to the west of germany, but still it's something between 15 and 33% where we're polling regionally. and so i think we should aim at a 20% number. let's see whether we'll get there. i guess the problem for the md is that you have one key issue on your platform that you push all the time to german voters — that is your very strong anti—immigration position. but what we see is that the other main political parties, particularly the christian democrats, in germany are now adopting similar tough language. they're stealing your clothes.

as you put it correctly, it's the language. it's the language. the christian democrats, especially them, do it all the time, for years now ahead of elections, and unfortunately people believe it and fall for that. but nobody must believe that. it was chancellor merkel, a cdu — christian democrat — chancellor who opened or abandoned germany's borders in 2015. and i am not yet convinced that a new cdu chancellor — mr merz, probably — will change that. i don't believe it. but friedrich merz has hit upon a formula which may well be very effective, because what he is saying to germans is, "look, when it comes to immigration, "we are the md but with substance, because we can "deliver and without the dangerous extremism." and the truth is, many germans still do see you, when you talk about immigration, as dangerous extremists. well, what can i say? you just mentioned that they say the same thing which we have said for ten years now, "we will "close the borders." so if that is an extreme

position from us ten years ago, it must be as extreme when it comes from the cdu now. so it'sjust a contradiction here, and it obviously seems to be a pattern when it comes to the old parties, even the labour parties in your very country. your prime ministerjust talked about open border experiments which the conservatives in the uk allegedly ran, and... well, maybe he forgot that his own prime ministers — gordon brown and the predecessor, tony blair — also abandoned the borders. but now with germany, it's the same thing. and, well, if this is extreme language, well, then they are extreme and it's the same language which we have been using for ten years now. but maybe you're missing a point here, mr boehringer. it's not just about the future policy on the border, about who you let in in the future. it's about what you'll also do with the migrants who are already inside germany. what there has been over the last 12 months in germany

is a serious scrutiny of the people inside your party who appear to share the idea that there should be, quote unquote, "a remigration policy" — that is, forcing hundreds of thousands of legal residents, migrants inside germany who have the right to be in germany, forcing them out of germany. and to many people, that sounds like extremism. well, you will not find anything like that in oui’ programmes. and actually, you will not even find something like that in the language of our politicians. it's just not true. it was all a lie. i know it was smeared all over, even internationally, but it's not true. we have no intention to do so. we want to send back those people who are here illegally, and obviously people who already got the citizenship are not here illegally and

nobody wants to send them back. so i know this was reported internationally, but it's wrong. there are even lawsuits going on. we are winning them, all of them, because it's really... it's wrong. well, the truth matters here, no doubt, mr boehringer. so i'm looking at a quote here from bjorn hocke, the leader of the md in thuringia, where your party, of course, is very strong. mr hocke in the past has said, quote, "i'm no longer "talking about integration. "i'm talking about remigration." he talked about wanting to deport up to 200,000 people from germany each year. he even, according to press reports, referred to a policy that would require, quote, "well—tempered cruelty". well, it's not my language to talk about well—tempered cruelty, but even that is not illegal. deportation is a term that even donald trump uses. and it has a... we did not say deportation. we actually said "sending people back"... so, there's nothing wrong about that, especially when he said 200,000, because that is more or less the number of people who are legally obliged to leave the country immediately. so all we...

all we ask for is that the law be enforced. yeah, but barely two minutes ago, you said to me that this phrase remigration, which has become so sensitive in germany, is a phrase that your party never uses. i'm looking at the state—level branch of your party in bavaria, which passed a resolution not so very long ago specifically talking about remigration. "groups of people with very little possibility of "integrating properly in germany," says the resolution, "should be returned "to their home countries through mandatory "return programmes." that's from the md in bavaria. sending people back mandatory, even by force, is legal and the state does it all the time. so there's nothing new we're demanding here. we only demand the law to be executed... but i think perhaps

you're missing my point. this resolution wasn't just about unauthorised entrants into germany. the concept here was communities and groups of people who had failed to integrate into germany, and the message was that even if they are legally in germany, those people should be deported. well, i've read this resolution. even though i haven't signed it, i have read it pretty closely. and what you just said in your last sentence is not in there. there are ten points in there. seven of them deal with immigration, stopping even more immigration, which is the much more important point than sending people back. and then there's one or two sending illegal immigrants back — yes, to some... and i think in the headline, and only in the headline, the term which you mentioned was used... yeah, remigration. but that... remigration. .. but that's not illegal. i mean, i wouldn't use it. it's not necessary. there's another term — abschiebung — in germany which is close to the point. we have that in our programmes, and only that term. but...

well, this is about words. when you read the ten points carefully, nothing illegal is in there and nothing cruel is in there, actually. there's nothing new, even. it's reallyjust a headline. just a final point on this, because we know this is very sensitive in germany, and we know that hundreds of thousands of germans took to the streets to protest about what they saw as the md peddling a remigration... based on a lie. based on a lie, stephen. this was all a lie... and you're right, they went to the streets. that's what you say. so, be clear with me. there was this meeting in november of 2023 when seniorfigures inside your party went to potsdam and met with the austrian far—right extremist martin sellner, who undoubtedly believes in what he calls a, quote unquote, "master plan" for remigration. so are you telling me today that those people inside your party who had talks with sellner, who clearly discussed a mass deportation based on remigration, they were wrong?

well, this is part of the lie which i'm explaining now for the fourth time, and it's really annoying that this lie is being spread all over the world for one year now... there is no lie... crosstalk let me finish that sentence, please. that meeting was called in by a cdu — christian democrat — official. are you talking, stephen, to the christian democrats and asking them what went wrong there, why they invited martin sellner, who is not a member of ours and never will be? and, well, it's not important what he does. he was one of the presenters. nobody discussed anything. and what they discussed did never, ever enter into our programme. i'm really bored and sick of saying... i've been saying that for one year now because it is all wrong. the interior minister of your country, when she read about this meeting and she knew that afd people were involved in that meeting, she said it was, quote, "reminiscent of the horrible

wannsee conference" — of course, a reference to that terrible meeting of the nazis. oh, come on... that's what she said. oh, come on. this is really becoming ridiculous now. everything is bogus. everything is wrong. especially that term is really incredibly wrong. and it's really... well, we're talking about the nazis here, so... well, i'm quoting to you... we have nothing to do with them... crosstalk ..the federal government's interior minister. and i'm specifically talking to you about her reference to the nazis because it is true — and you cannot deny this — that bjorn hocke, for example, the md leader in thuringia, has been convicted by a court of using a slogan which he must have known was redolent of nazi rhetoric and language. he was convicted in a court for using it, and many germans worry that a leader of your party who can use nazi language is sending a signal which is deeply dangerous for your country and for europe.

well, firstly, just a few days ago, our german chancellor scholz used a nazi term. unfortunately, there is no staatsanwalt, no prosecutor of the state suing him for that. but it's exactly the same thing. he should be sued for that. these things, i'm not saying they must happen, but not... they shouldn't. they shouldn't happen, of course. but, yes, there was a slip of tongue. that was... he didn't know, bjorn hocke didn't know it. and it's really interesting that it's the third time i'm here on the show...for five years now, i think, and we're always talking about bjorn hocke, who is a regional figure in germany. do you worry that both the courts and the intelligence services in germany right now, both have specifically labelled your party, at national level, and in particular states, as a potential danger to democracy? well, of course i'm aware of that because they are all biased.

that agency, that government agency is, as the name puts it, a government agency. the head of this agency reports directly to the left extremist minister of the interior, mrs faeser, and she dictates whatever he says and whatever he does. i'm sorry, mr boehringer... there is no... there is no independence here. there is no independence whatsoever. and thejudges did not uphold that. we are still fighting against that. what you're saying to me is astounding. you're saying to me that you don't believe that the intelligence services and the courts in your country are independent. well, maybe you should look elsewhere to other countries. germany is about the only country which has such a thing as an internal secret service, as... almost no other company has it. it's a shame to our democracy that we have such a thing. that's patently not true. these things should be settled... things should be settled politically. i'm sitting here in london,

we have an agency called mi5. it's an internal security service. but it doesn't prosecute parties, political parties, does it? it investigates extremism. and your intelligence service, your domestic intelligence service, believes that your party harbours extremists who are potentially dangerous to democracy. and i'm saying they don't believe it, but they were ordered to believe so. where's your evidence? well, the predecessor of the head of that agency was fired by mrs merkel for not prosecuting us. that was the reason. and there you have it. after him, as a successor, somebody was there who followed the orders. it's interesting that you say your own intelligence services are highly partisan, are being ordered by extremists in government to pursue you. you clearly don't believe in the independence of the courts, because the courts too have upheld this idea that elements of your party pose

a threat to democracy, and yet you seem to have great admiration for vladimir putin and for the russian government. well, we're changing topics now, but that's fine. we are not extreme. they are following orders. the judges do not follow orders, but they have not yet spoken the last word. we are still contesting any rulings of lower courts, so nothing has been settled here. and obviously we are not friends of putin. i personally come from a very anti—soviet parent house and i was... to this very day today, i'm a... i'm against socialism in any form. my party hates the soviet union, but, well, some things have changed a little bit in the 1990s. so we shouldn't compare putin one by one with the soviet union. that's just not wrong. i know it's. .. it's a story that is... well... ..well, common at the bbc, but it's not true. well, let's examine this idea that some in germany have that you are cosying up to putin.

i mean, the fact is that there is a war in ukraine right now which began with russia's all—out invasion. they already occupied some of ukraine, but after february 2022, they occupied much more of ukraine. you, in your party, insist that all german financial and military assistance to ukraine to fight back against putin's invasion should be halted. why do you do that? well, we are a patriotic party. we actually would like to act in the interests, the national interest of germany, as, for example, donald trump with the maga movement, make america great again. so we're trying to make germany not small again, not... that's probably the best we can achieve. and there is no such thing as... ..a german interest in this war. it is not our war. there are dozens of wars all over the world and we are not

making them our war. why this war? and i've been saying this for the third time now here i'm on the show. we have had more or less a peace treaty on the table in april...2022 and, well, more or less the current front status. one could have had that status and a peace negotiation and a peace treaty a lot earlier, with the same result. you're suggesting... with 500,000 less dead. mr boehringer, you're suggesting nothing has changed in the last couple of years. i would put it to you that many in europe believe a great deal has changed. not least, they now see that russia is basically launching a hybrid war inside europe that has a material impact upon germany and all your fellow member states of nato and the european union. we can point in recent months to exploding air freight cargo,

undersea cables cut in the baltic, according to german and us intelligence, a plot to assassinate the chief executive of rheinmetall, a manufacturer of armaments that go to ukraine. all of these are different ways in which, according to the intelligence services of a whole number of european countries, russia is now mounting a hybrid war on your continent. do you not care about that? i'm not here to defend russia and the war and the invasion into ukraine. i never did that. 0ur party doesn't do it, my party doesn't do it. but when we talk about, well, damage to germany, yes, there has been a damage which is a lot bigger than everything which we've just mentioned, and that was the destruction of the nord stream 2 pipeline. and i'm almost 100% certain that it's not russia that did that, more or less the opposite. the official version even is it's been ukraine damaging that pipeline. so why should we help ukraine?

and the story, the history of that war goes back, i believe, until 1991, when that country was founded with difficult borders, to put it that way. and then we have had the 2008 and 2014 toppling of elected presidents. this is a very long story. i'm not saying one sid has the full blame, but it's a very difficult, different, difficult situation. and it's not russia alone. i'll be honest with you, mr boehringer... it's not our war. that's the only thing we're saying. i'm not entirely sure what you are saying to the german people. with an election looming in february, i'm not entirely sure what your message is. and let me explain what i mean by that. here are the words of the chief of the german foreign intelligence service, bruno kahl, last week saying, quote, "whether we like it or not, we are in direct "confrontation with russia.

"the extensive use of hybrid measures "by moscow increases risks. "nato will eventually have to consider invoking article 5, "the mutual defence clause." that's what he says. what you say, and i'm quoting you now, you say, quote, "we are more or less neutral." the message is exactly that. yes, we would like to remain as equidistant to the big powers as possible. really? and that does not mean that... really? that does not mean that we're siding with russia. it does not mean that. i don't like the russian model of state. not at all. and we don't like their aggression. but this is not our war. and when you start citing people, well, why not cite boris johnson? just three days ago, he mentioned, "the only option is victory." that's what he said. that's a quote. "and the mistake...", again, another quote. "the mistake has been not to escalate "that war early enough." and especially interesting, "we are waging a proxy war." and he was saying, "we", we is in this case, i don't

know, his buddies, his friends. it's a proxy war and it's admittedly a proxy war. that's what borisjohnson admitted. so who's fighting here? are we really here the proxy paying for everything and maybe even sending soldiers there? no. my party says no, we shouldn't do that. so you are selling to the german people, with an election looming, this notion of neutrality in the face of the threats that your own intelligence and military services point out coming from moscow. that's a choice you've made. it's not an all... this is not an all—out neutrality. i was just talking about that very war. mr boehringer, it's a choice you've made. and as we end, i want to build on that idea, you're neutral. i'm not talking about leaving nato. no, no. i didn't say we're going to leave nato. i never said you did. that's not part of our programme. i never... i never said you did. i'm just exploring your idea of neutrality, because one policy position you do have when it comes to europe is you'd like, in the long term, to leave the european union.

in the short term, you'd like to get out of the eurozone and restore the deutsche mark. and in the long run, you say germany needs to make dexit — to get out of the european union. do you think when it comes to that position, you are taking the german people with you? well, we are not plainly saying we're going to leave the eu and just become a nation state in its own right. we are proposing founding a new european entity, but unfortunately the european union as it is today is not... it's not possible to reform it. and we've been knowing that for years now. it's becoming clearer every year. so we cannot go on with this very eu. it has to be another entity which provides open borders for european citizens between countries and open trade. and that's the european economic union up until 1990. that's more or less our role model. we would like to go back to that. there's nothing extreme about that. you see, again, it's interesting to me, as we finish this interview, i'm mindful you've alluded a couple of times to donald trump. donald trump won the

presidential election in the us because it seems most americans believe that he was better for their pocketbook than the alternative, kamala harris. but here's what one leading economist has said of your ideas about leaving the eurozone and disentangling yourselves from the bureaucracy of brussels. carsten brzeski says, "the mother of all "financial crises would result. "disentangling the monetary, economic and financial "integration of 25 years would be an economic disaster." do you believe the german people want you to go down that path? well... as i'vejust said, we're not planning to do that. especially the economic union is not a mistake. we would like to keep that. so nothing wrong about that. falling tariffs or abandoning the tariffs, very easy thing to do. that's the opposite of what donald trump is planning to do. and then the other day, there was...an examination what parties, the famous economics that are always quoted all over

the media, adhere to. and 90% of them are leftists, left—wing socialists. and, well, this is probably one of them. and they're all supranationalists. so... well, what can i say? it's an opinion. it's an alleged majority opinion. and, yes, the free trade thing is correct. we see it the same way. but you don't need the european union to achieve all that. peter boehringer, we're sadly out of time, but i do thank you very much for joining me on hardtalk. thank you. thank you, stephen, and goodbye.

hello there. the rest of this week looks like one of two halves. we'll certainly have some quieter, colderweather for the next couple of days with some decent spells of sunshine. could see some snow on the hills across the north through tuesday night, and then as we push towards the end of the week, it turns milder but very much wetter and windier as deep areas of low pressure moving off the atlantic. so we're in this ridge of high pressure, though, for tuesday and this wedge of colder air, as you can see on the airmass chart, so it will be a colder start for many for tuesday morning. very cold across scotland, perhaps down to —7, —8 celsius over the highlands and the grampians. and there will be some freezing fog patches around. some fog patches further south too, which may lift into low cloud, but for many, it'll be a dry and a sunny day with light winds. but across south—west england, northern ireland, western scotland, we'll start to see a weather front pushing in, bringing outbreaks of rain and increasing breeze here. but for most, it stays dry through the day but a cold one to come. temperatures struggling to get

above freezing across scotland, to around 4 or 5 degrees in the south. but as that rain bumps into the cold air across scotland during tuesday evening, we could see a spell of fairly significant hill snow here, with some accumulations and maybe some for northern england, the cumbrian fells, north wales as we move through tuesday night. but as the weather front moves southwards and eastwards, it tends to fizzle out, so no more than a band of cloud with a few showers across southern areas. but again, it's going to be another cold night to come. a touch of frost in there and possibly some ice too. so wednesday, then, it should be a mostly dry day once again thanks to a ridge of high pressure. so plenty of sunshine around, one or two showers around coastal areas. but later in the day, we'll start to see the next weather front arriving across western areas. that will bring increasing cloud breeze and also some rain with temperatures lifting here, but another chilly day to come elsewhere. it's all change, though, beyond wednesday. thursday, friday, we'll start to see a deep area of low pressure spread across the country, bringing a spell of very wet and windy weather with widespread gales and another one hot on its heels. so we'll see wet, windy

weather early on thursday push its way eastwards. a bit of sunshine, then the wind, the rain, the gales start to build up again as another system pushes in from the south—west, but that'll be ushering in some milder air, with temperatures ranging from 10 to 1a or 15 degrees from north to south across the country. could see a spell of potentially very stormy weather friday night into saturday. this is certainly one to watch. and then for part two of the weekend, it'll turn colder but brighter once again. take care.

live from washington, this is bbc news. georgia's president speaks to the as mass anti—government protests enter anti—government protests enter a fifth night. we anti-government protests enter a fifth night-— a fifth night. we see on the streets that _ a fifth night. we see on the streets that the _ a fifth night. we see on the streets that the georgian i streets that the georgian population wants nothing else and nothing more than its independence and its european past. independence and its european ast. , independence and its european ast, , , , past. syria's president blames the us and — past. syria's president blames the us and other _ past. syria's president blames the us and other european - the us and other european countries for a rebel takeover of the city of aleppo, that has reignited the civil war. and american politicians on both sides of the aisle, republicans and democrats, criticisejoe

biden�*s decision to issue a presidential pardon to his son, hunter. iam i am helena iam helena humphrey, get heavy with us. in georgia, thousands of protesters in the capital tbilisi for a fifth night in a row. a warning that there may be some flashing images in the live pictures coming to us from georgian television. you can see protesters have been clashing with riot police, throwing fireworks at officers who have been shooting tear gas and water cannon. the protesters are furious about what they see as the government's increasing ties russia, a country that currently occupy some 20% of their land. the earlier bear this year, the prime minister's party georgian dream, passed a law that critics say are similar to a piece of russian that suppresses independent journalism and targets dissidents. the prime minister said he put european talks on

hold — make the european union talks on hold,