Provocateur in his own ranks: Boris Palmer has long been considered isolated in the party. What does leaving the Greens mean?
Why should he change his style, after all he has won the mayoral election for the third time? A typical line from Boris Palmer. Expressed to journalists shortly after the mayoral election in Tübingen last year. With 52.4 percent and an absolute majority in the first ballot, he was bursting with self-confidence. Elsewhere he let it be known that he wanted to change his behavior on Facebook in the future and also better control himself in other ways. Yes, what now?
Boris Palmer’s public statements have often followed the same pattern. First he pushes discussions to the extreme, then he rows back. Polarization, verbal missteps and racist choice of words have repeatedly brought him nationwide attention. Often followed by relativization and purification.
Palmer calls Dennis Aogo a ‘bad racist’
Just remember the debate on social networks in May 2021, when he used a racist term in connection with former national soccer player Dennis Aogo and finally called Aogo himself a “bad racist”. We should also remember his controversial positions on refugee policy. In October 2015, for example, he called for the EU’s external borders to be closed, armed if necessary.
He was heavily criticized for the idea of collecting “conspicuous” refugees from communal shelters on a list and taking them to “safe state facilities” in remote areas. And how was that in connection with Corona? “I’ll tell you very brutally: In Germany we may save people who would be dead in six months anyway,” said Palmer on breakfast television in April 2020.
It was statements like these that increasingly isolated the 50-year-old from the Greens. And his politics alone was more and more in stark contrast to the beginnings of the former political star, who seemed to be making a steep career from Baden-Württemberg. In 1996, while still a student, he joined the Greens. He later became a member of the state parliament, in 2004 he ran in the mayoral election in Stuttgart, and since 2006 he has been the head of the town hall in Tübingen. In Tübingen, he promotes topics such as local climate protection initiatives, new ideas for strengthening local transport or more citizen participation, and these are likely to continue to be key concerns for him.
This time everything sounds like the final break
At the same time, the final break with the party takes place. Palmer announced his departure on Monday after the recent scandal at Frankfurt’s Goethe University. With immediate effect. The decision should initially take a lot of pressure off the heated debate about Palmer in the Greens, which had recently flattened out a bit, but was of course still being conducted in the background. Mainly at federal level, but also at state and local level.
Tragically, Palmer is increasingly reminded of his own father’s fate. Helmut Palmer had been politically active throughout his life, repeatedly fought against the arbitrary authorities and paternalism, stood in around 250 mayoral elections himself and was later no longer taken seriously as the “Remstal rebel,” as he was nicknamed.
District association cautiously approaches again
Boris Palmer’s membership in the Greens was officially suspended until the end of 2023. After the mayor’s election victory in Tübingen, it was only in March of this year that the previously split district association of the Greens came together again with difficulty. One half had previously campaigned for the official Greens candidate Ulrike Baumgärtner, the other half for Palmer, who ran as an independent candidate. The members were so divided that the only way out was through mediation.
The arduous process of reappraisal should now become a lot easier after Palmer’s departure. Those involved are spared an agonizingly long argument with the provocateur in their own ranks. But where does Palmer’s path lead?
If the self-imposed “time out” that Palmer is now taking ends at some point, he will eventually return to the town hall chair in Tübingen. There he can at least still hope for a few supporters among the citizens. It remains to be seen whether it will become quieter around him and he will heed his own apologetic words that he “never should have talked like that” when he was mayor in Frankfurt. The only thing that is certain about Palmer is that you can never be quite sure what will happen next. Just now.
