Poland's main opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), has expelled Senator Jacek Włosowicz from its parliamentary caucus after he publicly criticized the party for abandoning its conservative roots in favor of what he called a "nationalist turn" that threatens its electoral future.
The March 19 expulsion, reported by Notes from Poland, came after Włosowicz appeared on liberal broadcaster TVN to condemn his own party's efforts to block Poland's access to €44 billion in EU defense loans through the SAFE program.
"PiS was supposed to be a broad-based conservative party" when it was founded in 2001, Włosowicz said. "It is becoming a nationalist party."
That assessment—delivered on national television by one of the party's own senators—cuts to the heart of PiS's current identity crisis. In Poland, as across Central Europe, history is never far from the surface—and neither is the memory of occupation. The question now facing PiS is whether doubling down on nationalist rhetoric can reverse its sliding poll numbers, or whether it accelerates the party's decline.
The numbers tell a striking story. PiS support has collapsed to approximately 24 percent—its lowest level since 2012—while the combined support for harder-right alternatives, Confederation and Confederation of the Polish Crown, has surged to around 21 percent. The party is hemorrhaging voters to both the center and the nationalist fringe.
PiS spokesman Rafał Bochenek accused Włosowicz of being "on [Prime Minister Donald] Tusk's side," noting that the senator had not been a formal party member since 2011, though he ran as a PiS candidate in recent elections. The response reflects the party's increasingly rigid approach to internal dissent.
What triggered Włosowicz's public break was PiS's position on the SAFE program—a massive EU defense loan initiative designed to boost European military capabilities in response to Russian aggression. The senator argued that when PiS held power, opposition parties supported defense spending increases. By blocking access to EU defense funds now, he suggested, the party was putting political positioning ahead of national security.


