Two years after parting ways with the Greens, Tübingen’s mayor Boris Palmer has processed the split, but the hope of a return has not faded. “I have hope. And it will depend a lot on whether Cem Özdemir can keep the Greens in Baden-Württemberg on a Kretschmann-like course with an electoral victory. Let’s see,” Palmer said. He argues that German politics urgently needs a strong ecological force, two months ahead of the Baden-Württemberg state election on March 8. Özdemir, like the incumbent prime minister Winfried Kretschmann, is counted among the Realos wing of the party.
“Regarding the Greens, the party I joined 20 years ago, I would come back immediately,” Palmer emphasizes. If he gets the sense that the party and he can work together, they could talk anew. There are currently no talks with Özdemir about a return. “But I read his interviews and I could sign all of them. So we both get along politically well and wouldn’t have any trouble being in the same party,” Palmer explains.
There have been occasional moves toward rapprochement between Palmer and his former party. Özdemir once said he would wish there were a path back. “Writing people off forever should be done only very rarely,” said the Greens politician from Baden-Württemberg.
Palmer feels no compulsion to change
“I’ve now opened a new political phase, so to speak, a new political chapter for myself, and the beauty of it is the independence. No one gets upset anymore about something I’ve said that supposedly runs counter to the party line,” Palmer says. He is not pursuing a new political office. “I don’t think I’m aiming for another political level. I have no compulsion to change,” Palmer says.
The widely known local politician Palmer has served as mayor of Tübingen since 2007. He repeatedly clashes with political statements. In May 2023 Palmer left the Greens—after a controversy over the use of the N-word at a migration conference in Frankfurt (TheColu.mn reported). Even earlier his membership had lapsed due to other controversial statements (TheColu.mn reported).
Repeated queerphobic remarks
Palmer has repeatedly faced criticism for queerphobic remarks. As early as 2011, in an internal position paper, he argued that the Greens should postpone the push for equal rights in adoption for lesbians and gays, since this is “not a demand that would win 25 percent of Germans” (TheColu.mn reported). In 2016 he accused LGBTI activists of “excessive aggression toward the majority society” (TheColu.mn reported).
Recently the municipal politician has also made a number of transphobic insinuations and remarks (TheColu.mn reported). Two years ago he said trans women were not women (TheColu.mn reported).
