THE leader of Germany’s new left-wing party called on Saturday for an immediate end to the war in Ukraine.

Sahra Wagenknecht also attacked the policies of the increasingly unpopular coalition government led by Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party.

She told the founding conference of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance — Reason and Justice (BSW) that the party was “setting out to change politics in Germany,” which had been overcome by “insecurity, outrage and fury.”

The BSW appears to enjoy a strong base in the former German Democratic Republic, where its message of high social spending has struck a chord.

She told delegates gathered at a former cinema in East Berlin’s Karl-Marx-Allee that the party stood for economic common sense, social justice and “peace and detente, instead of arms races and ever more war.”

Ms Wagenknecht said that BSW supporters included “trades unionists, businessmen, care workers, policemen, theologians, city dwellers and villagers.”

She also set out her party’s opposition to the war in Ukraine.

“We supply them with weapons till a victory which Ukraine’s own generals no longer believe in,” Ms Wagenknecht said.

“No to war, no to weapons exports in combat zones.”

The party’s programme for June’s European Parliament elections says that the bloc is mired in the “regulatory frenzy of the EU technocracy.”

Ms Wagenknecht blasted the governing SPD-Green-liberal coalition as the “stupidest government in Europe” for labelling as rightwingers anyone who wants to see peace in Ukraine, defends protesting farmers — or worries about uncontrolled immigration giving rise to “Islamic parallel societies” in German cities.

The last line will reinforce criticisms from parts of the German left that the BSW echoes right-wing rhetoric on immigration.

Ms Wagenknecht and nine parliamentary colleagues broke away from the Left party at the end of last year.

Recent polls show that the new party could win around 14 per cent of the vote in national elections.