Germany strikes a brave new deal on immigration

GERMANY’S DEBATE over migration sometimes seems divorced from reality. The country’s low birth rate and shrinking workforce imply a pressing need to import manpower. Yet much political talk is concerned with how to keep immigrants out. The anti-immigration right is . Even otherwise liberal folk are increasingly prone to say that “certain kinds” of immigrants are alien to the , a fuzzy concept of Germanness.Yet the past week has seen a turn. Earlier this month German media exposed the proceedings of a recent private conclave of at a posh hotel near Berlin, where participants discussed expelling millions of aliens. That scandal woke up the left, which has organised a series of big “anti-fascist” demonstrations across the country, numbering over a million people during a weekend of protests in scores of towns on January 20th-21st.