Liberal Brits got a welcome wake-up call yesterday, when the woman they’ve been calling the leader of the free world voted against Gay Marriage. ‘For me, marriage in law should be between a man and a woman, and that’s why I didn’t vote in favour of this bill,’ said Angela Merkel, after the German parliament voted to legalise same-sex unions by 393 votes to 226.
All the usual suspects have been on Twitter, voicing their right-on indignation, but for anyone who knows anything about Merkel, the wonder is that anybody should be in the slightest bit surprised. The recent immigration crisis has made Merkel a hate figure for the British right and an unlikely heroine for the British left, but amid our Brexit furore an awful lot of Brits (left and right) seem to have forgotten that Merkel is leader of Europe’s most powerful and successful conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union.
The CDU has always been conservative on social issues, and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, even more so.
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