By Graham John — Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Germany and Britain on a Shared Path
Friedrich Merz is not “finished” — at least not in any formal sense. He is Chancellor, holds the constitutional authority of his office, and represents Germany on the international stage. But the real question is not whether he remains in office, but whether the political model he embodies still commands the trust upon which democratic order ultimately depends.
In this respect, his position increasingly resembles that of Keir Starmer in Britain. Both lead countries that remain formally democratic, yet whose political cultures increasingly feel like systems of administration rather than arenas of genuine political contestation. Both speak the language of responsibility, stability and necessity. And both govern societies in which many people feel that politics no longer emerges from open debate, but from managerial control.
Democracy as Procedure — No Longer as Relationship
In both Germany and Britain, the formal elements of democracy remain intact: elections are held, parliaments sit, courts are independent. Yet the space in which political opinions can freely emerge, be expressed and have real effect has noticeably narrowed.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of free speech. It is the foundation of any living democracy — not as an abstract right, but as the precondition for collective self-correction. When it is curtailed, the political system loses its ability to recognize error and to adjust course.
This is not about overt censorship. Rather, a new form of limitation has emerged: through regulatory interventions in digital platforms, through legal grey zones, through algorithmic steering, and through growing social pressure to conform. Under the banner of responsibility, security, or the fight against disinformation, the boundary of what may be said is gradually shifted.
A Personal Perspective: Germany Then — and Now
My perception of this development is also shaped by biography. I left Germany in 1980, after seven years working in the state education system, both in a comprehensive school and in a grammar school. Those years coincided with the first visible waves of reform, particularly in education. Yet they were still carried by a basic confidence: in institutions, in professional competence, and in the seriousness of public debate.
Teaching at that time conveyed a sense of being part of a larger social project. Education was not seen merely as a technical qualification, but as the foundation of responsible citizenship. Despite disagreements, there was a shared understanding that schools, the state and society bore responsibility for one another.
It is precisely for this reason that the present state of affairs feels so alien to me. The Germany I knew was not without flaws — but it possessed a degree of inner confidence, institutional self-assurance and intellectual seriousness that now seems to be slipping away.
My path eventually led back to Britain, into the state education system, where I taught French and German. In retrospect, this was also an attempt to give something back: for the years spent abroad, for the education I had received, for the intellectual climate Germany had offered me. Education then was more than training — it was part of a shared civic identity.
For a long time, Germany remained a benchmark for me: a country that did not repress its history but reflected upon it; that drew institutional strength from catastrophe; that combined discipline with social responsibility.
All the more unsettling is the Germany one encounters today.
Merz and Starmer: Administrators of an Exhausted Order
What I now observe in Germany increasingly resembles developments long familiar in Britain: a narrowing of political discourse, a technocratic tone, and a growing distance between the political class and lived reality. Former self-confidence has given way to nervous caution — a fear of saying the wrong thing or stepping outside the moral consensus.
Neither Merz nor Starmer is an ideologue. Both are administrators of stability. Both stand for order, predictability and institutional seriousness. Yet precisely this posture appears increasingly inadequate in the present situation.
Merz embodies a conservative ethic of responsibility that once had real substance: fiscal discipline, adherence to rules, moral restraint. But in a society under economic pressure, undergoing industrial change and marked by growing insecurity, this stance now feels increasingly detached from reality.
Starmer, for his part, seeks to stabilise Britain through sobriety and managerial competence. Yet here too the impression arises that political vision has been replaced by crisis management.
In both cases, what is missing is a convincing narrative of where the country is meant to be heading.
The Real Fault Line: The Younger Generation
This becomes most visible in the situation of younger people. In both Germany and Britain, they face rising rents, insecure employment and limited prospects of advancement. They are expected to adapt — ecologically, socially, morally — without being offered a realistic sense of future security.
In Germany this is particularly painful, because it represents a break with the post-war promise. The country that once guaranteed stability and social mobility now appears disoriented. In Britain, this development has been underway for longer — but the two societies are now converging.
Not 1933 — But Not a Comforting Moment Either
It is important to retain perspective. We are not witnessing a return of the 1930s. There are no paramilitary movements, no abolition of basic rights, no open authoritarianism.
Yet democracies rarely fail spectacularly. They erode quietly — when trust fades, when participation becomes procedural, when citizens feel their voices no longer matter.
Closing Reflection
Germany once showed Europe how political responsibility could emerge from historical guilt. Britain long demonstrated how democratic tradition could absorb change. Today, both countries seem uncertain about their direction.
Merz and Starmer may survive their terms in office. What matters more is whether the political systems they represent can regain trust — through genuine participation and a credible vision of the future.
For democracies do not die at the moment laws are broken.
On the contrary: a living democracy depends on the ability to question law, to test boundaries, and to criticise power — even when that is uncomfortable.
Paradoxically, democracy can exist only where it is still possible to break rules. Not because lawlessness is desirable, but because the freedom to step beyond established orders is the final safeguard against absolutism. Where every deviation is technically recorded, morally sanctioned or pre-emptively prevented, what remains is formal legality — but not freedom.
A society organised through comprehensive surveillance, regulation and moral control, in which only those who make the rules can break them, loses its democratic core. In such a system, power becomes untouchable because it controls itself.
The greatest danger of our time is therefore not external threat, not military invasion, not even open dictatorship.
It lies in the gradual disappearance of the grey zones in which freedom can exist at all.
A Brief Philosophical Aside
The fear that democracy erodes not through violence but through control is not new:
Hannah Arendt warned that freedom vanishes not through terror but through total administration, when action is replaced by regulation.
George Orwell showed that surveillance shapes not only behaviour but thought itself.
Alexis de Tocqueville described the “soft despotism” of a state that does not oppress but infantilises.
Michel Foucault analysed power as discipline through norms and self-surveillance rather than open repression.
Friedrich Hayek recognised that comprehensive planning inevitably requires comprehensive control.
Shoshana Zuboff has shown how digital surveillance undermines democratic self-determination without abolishing formal rights.
Shared insight:
Democracy does not die when laws are broken —
but when no one is allowed to question them anymore.
Or, put differently:
Where only what has been approved is permitted,
there may be order — but there is no freedom.
