Palmer had announced a break after heavy criticism and announced his resignation from the party. The Greens state association of Baden-Württemberg confirmed the party exit on Monday.
There were reasons why there was a lot of discussion about Palmer and arbitration proceedings against him, and his party membership was already suspended, Nouripour said on ZDF’s “Morgenmagazin”. “It’s respectable that he’s now pulling the rip cord himself – and I wish him a good life,” added the Greens boss.
“I respect this step,” said the parliamentary group leader of the Greens in the Baden-Württemberg state parliament, Andreas Schwarz. Palmer draw “a line” and thus create clear conditions. “We Greens want to concentrate on the essentials – how we can advance Baden-Württemberg innovatively, ecologically and socially.”
The district and city association of the Greens in Tübingen announced that they “respectfully acknowledged” Palmer’s decision. The local Greens have made great efforts to get closer, “but in view of the recent events, we consider the exit to be a logical step”. If there were opportunities to work with Palmer on the content for the socio-ecological development of the city, “we are ready for it”.
It was clear to him that things couldn’t go on like this, the Südwestrundfunk quoted Palmer on Monday from a personal statement. He could no longer put up with the repeated storms of outrage from his family, his friends and supporters and from the city of Tübingen. He therefore announced that he would take professional help during a break and want to try to work through his part in the increasingly destructive entanglements.
A spokeswoman for the city administration of Tübingen was unable to make any statement on Tuesday “at the present time” about exactly what the time-out will look like. Palmer is also ill and will therefore not comment on it for the time being.
The Mayor of Tübingen recently caused outrage again with controversial statements in the context of an event on the subject of migration at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. The university demanded an apology from Palmer.
As seen in a video posted online, a group of protesters confronted Palmer outside the university on Friday, accusing him of using the so-called N-word. Palmer then repeated it several times.
The demonstrators then shouted “Nazis out”. Palmer replied, according to a video posted to Twitter, “You judge people by a single word. And then you know everything about man. That’s nothing but a Jewish star.”
Palmer, 50, had previously been criticized for controversial statements. In May 2021, the Greens in Baden-Württemberg decided on party exclusion proceedings against him. The reason was a post on Facebook about former national soccer player Dennis Aogo that was considered racist. According to Palmer, his entry was meant to be satirical.
At the time, Palmer and the party agreed on a compromise: Palmer declared that he would not be a member of the Greens until the end of 2023, which meant that the party’s expulsion was off the table. He then won the mayoral election in Tübingen again in October 2022 and began a third term.
