Quartz: The leader of Germany’s far-right party quit hours after its election success—because it’s too radical

This doesn’t mean Petry is a moderate, she’s far from it. A member of the AfD since 2013, it was she who put the former eurosceptic party on its new anti-immigration platform during the height of the refugee crisis in 2015. She’s made numerous controversial statements about refugees too, including that “Islam does not belong in Germany,” and saying that German border police should be allowed to fire on migrants along the Austria-German border.

Petry, who for some has been acceptable face of xenophobia, has been critical of radical statements made by others in the party as she believed it made it less attractive to moderate voters as well as for potential coalition partners when it would enter the Bundestag for the first time. [...]

Alexander Gauland stuck to his inflammatory rhetoric at the party’s first post-election press conference on Monday morning. “One million people, foreigners, being brought into this country are taking away a piece of this country and we as AfD don’t want that,” Gauland said. “We don’t want to lose Germany to an invasion of foreigners from a different culture.”

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Politico: 5 fronts in the coming eurozone battle

The possibility of the German liberal party FDP entering into a governing coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel means Macron’s plans to overhaul the eurozone have suffered a serious setback. The FDP has made it clear throughout the campaign that it would draw a “red line” in front of any plans to further integrate the eurozone, as France advocates. [...]

As always, Macron’s speech will be loaded with symbolism. It will take place at the Sorbonne, Paris’ oldest university and once the center of France’s intellectual life, in front of European students. The choice of the date was more controversial: The French president went against the advice of some in his entourage, who cautioned that this overt attempt to set part of the German political agenda might backfire if he falls way short of his ambitious goals.

The new French leader notably wants Europe’s economic and monetary union to have some form of common budget under the authority of a so-called eurozone finance minister. Although Merkel and even her hard-line Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble have greeted Macron’s general ideas with the appearance of polite interest, many German officials and parties oppose “fiscal transfers,” or the pooling of budgetary resources, even in a limited way.

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Politico: Support grows for second Brexit vote

Just over half of those surveyed said they back some form of a second referendum, with the most popular scenario being a vote to either accept the government’s Brexit deal, or to stay in the EU — an option backed by 34 percent. That is up from 28 percent in a similar survey in March, according to new findings from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQRR). In the earlier survey, 45 percent of people backed a second referendum — although these figures include public votes that would still mean the U.K. leaves the EU under either outcome.

The pro-EU Liberal Democrats are the only U.K. political party now backing a second referendum, but they hold just 12 seats in parliament. The opposition Labour Party, which meets for its annual conference in Brighton this week, has so far ruled out the idea — and decided Sunday not to have a debate or vote on the issue during the gathering. The Scottish National Party is not formally pushing for a vote, but leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon hinted it still might, telling the New Statesman last week that the case for a second vote “may become very hard to resist.” [...]

Among Labour voters who responded to the survey, support for some kind of second referendum is at 70 percent, with a referendum on accepting the Brexit deal or staying in the EU the most popular, backed by 51 percent. [...]

Overall, 39 percent of respondents reject the idea of a second referendum — and 7 percent want a “hard Brexiteer’s referendum” in which people would choose between the government’s deal and leaving the EU without a deal. Another 10 percent back a referendum that would give voters the chance to reject the government’s Brexit deal, but send it back to the negotiating table. [...]

While there is broad support for the fundamentals of the U.K. government’s negotiating position, it is the increasing interest in revisiting the entire question of Brexit that will be of most interest, particularly to the opposition Labour Party, which gained much of its support from voters drawn to its softer stance on Brexit. The Lib Dems will also take heart from the findings, after failing to cut through with voters at June’s general election with their second referendum message.

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Politico: Time for Brussels to ‘go nuclear’ on Warsaw

It should be obvious by now that PiS won’t back down easily. It is implementing a plan, devised 12 years ago, that sets Poland on the road to a one-party autocracy with the judiciary as its pawn.

The party has attacked the country’s democratic institutions and judiciary since 2005. With fervent, conspiracy-laden rhetoric, PiS blamed the country’s negotiated transition and ex-communist elite for all of Poland’s ills and took concrete steps to rid public life of them. [...]

Between 2005 and 2007, the coalition government led by PiS purged public media and pressured private outlets, under the claim by then Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński that they were owned by “oligarchs.” At the same time, it launched a ferocious lustration campaign against the country’s intellectuals and waged a war on the judiciary. [...]

Such a short-sighted approach is dangerous. Other members and members-in-waiting could feel emboldened by Warsaw’s renegadism, and having rogue countries in the EU’s backyard would pose a danger to the bloc — especially if those rogue countries are geographically close to Russia.

The EU has no choice but to keep pressuring Poland if it wants to prevent the risk of further contagion and the certain demise of the Union as a community of values.

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The Conversation: Attitudes to same-sex marriage have many psychological roots, and they can change

Attitudes to same-sex marriage appear more malleable than we might have expected. In a 2013 survey by US think-tank the Pew Research Center, 28% of US supporters of same-sex marriage reported they had changed their mind on the issue. Most often change occurred as a result of contact with someone personally affected by it. [...]

The idea of nature is rhetorically powerful, and the two sides in the Irish same-sex marriage debate harnessed it to advance diverging causes. Opponents focused their objections on the supposed unnaturalness of same-sex parenthood, marriage and gender relations. Proponents advocated for a more inclusive sense of what is natural. [...]

This research indicates that much of the opposition to same-sex marriage is grounded in sexual prejudice, despite that opposition often being publicly justified on different grounds. But, a modest proportion of conservatives’ opposition was not explained by prejudice. This fraction may reflect principled objections based on conservative political or religious beliefs.

One account of political conservatism proposes that it rests on two pillars: resistance to change and opposition to equality. The first values the preservation of tradition and social order. The second maintains that differences in social outcomes are natural and inevitable.

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