Time for a Swexit Vote? Sweden Democrats Think So

Sweden needs a vote on EU membership, says nationalist politician

(FIle photo) © Emmanuel Dunand / AFP

The leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats has pledged his party’s support for a referendum on the Scandinavian country’s membership in the European Union.

“The EU is not the way to cooperate in Europe,” Party chief Jimmie Akesson said on Sveriges Radio, calling for a Brexit-style vote. “My position is that we should renegotiate the terms [of our membership] of the EU and then the people should have its say.”

The comments come just one day after two of the party’s MEPs posted an opinion piece online urging Sweden to push ahead with its “Swexit” strategy.

“The Sweden Democrats want to leave the European Union,” wrote Kristina Winberg and Peter Lundgren. “We do not want to have some unelected EU Commission, which together with the court and the parliament can bulldoze over member states even if they say ‘no’ the whole way.”

Nearly half of Swedes and Danes said they’d rather be in a 'Nordic Union' with their neighbors from Norway, Finland and Iceland than in the EU, a fresh poll revealed.

Research conducted by pollster Sentio for Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen showed 47 percent support the hypothetical Nordic Union in Sweden and 45 percent in Denmark.

32 percent of Swedes and 36 percent of Danes were happy to remain in the European Union, while the rest said they were undecided on the issue.

National support for the Sweden Democrats has risen in tandem with anti-immigrant sentiment in the country in recent years. In the 2014 election, the party received nearly 13 percent of the vote and became the third largest party in Sweden.

In June, polls showed that the party to be nearly even with the ruling Social Democrats ahead of next month’s general election. The poll, conducted for Sweden’s Expressen newspaper, gave the Sweden Democrats 21 percent of the vote, the highest score in the party’s history. The more liberal Social Democrats, currently in a coalition government with the Green Party, polled at 23 percent.

However, Akesson is not confident that the Sweden Democrats can pull off a shock win next month.

“I don’t believe that I’m going to be sitting in the government after the election,” he told Sveriges Radio. He did concede that he thought his party would have “a significant influence.”

He can't form a government even if he gets the most votes. He will need the cooperation of at least 2 other parties, and none are willing to work with him even if they agree with his main policies.

Anti-Immigrant Sweden Democrats Party Surges in Polls Amid EU’s Eurosceptic Wave

Listing to Starboard in Sweden of all places

sverigedemokraterna / Instagram

The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats have gained ground in a recent poll, pulling almost even with the ruling Social Democrats, ahead of an election in September. Similar parties have won recent elections in Slovenia and Italy.

The poll, conducted for Sweden’s Expressen newspaper and published Monday, has put the Sweden Democrats in second place, with 21 percent of the vote, the highest score in the party’s history. The liberal Social Democrats, currently in a coalition government with the Green Party, are still in first place but polling at 23.1 percent.

The surge in popularity for Sweden Democrats is attributed to voters leaving Social Democrats for other left-wing parties, but also to the country’s open-door migration policy, which has been accompanied by a crime wave.

Gang-related gun murders –overwhelmingly carried out by men with migrant backgrounds– have surged from around four per-year in the early 1990s to 40 last year. Rapes and anti-Semitic attacks by Muslim immigrants have also surged. Grenade attacks were up 550 percent last year from three years prior.

Just last week, Rakmat Akilov, an asylum seeker from Uzbekistan, was given a life sentence for a truck attack last year. Akilov plowed a truck down a busy shopping street in Stockholm last April, killing five people and injuring almost a dozen others. Among the dead was an 11-year-old girl. He said he acted on behalf of Islamic State.

“I often use Sweden as a deterring example,” Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Swedish television in January, warning about the dangers of unchecked immigration.

In April, a poll by Demoskop revealed that immigration is the top issue for Swedish voters ahead of the election. Law and order is the third most important issue, while integration comes in fourth. On immigration and integration, voters have the most confidence in the Sweden Democrats party.

The Social Democrats party seems to be be focusing on other issues, however. On Monday, Stockholm’s city council voted to ban ‘sexist’ advertising in public spaces, including ads that "show a stereotypical image of gender roles.” The council is run by the Social Democrats and Moderate Unity Party, described as “liberal conservatives.”

The Sweden Democrats’ rise appears to be tracking the broader swing in support towards parties critical of immigration across the European Union. Italy got a Eurosceptic government at the end of May, which immediately took a tough line on immigration. Over the past weekend, the Italian navy turned back a French ship that rescued 629 migrants in the Mediterranean, criticizing the EU leadership in Brussels for leaving Italy to bear the brunt of Europe’s migrant problem “all by itself.”

Last week, Slovenia’s anti-immigrant SDS-EPP party won the general election there, with 28 percent of the vote. The SDS-EPP has promised to lock down the Slovenian border and ban the wearing of the burqa in public. They have received open support from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a long-time crusader against immigration and the Brussels establishment.

The Sweden Democrats still face an uphill battle to get into government. Sweden’s establishment parties have long refused to enter into coalition with them. Electoral math still favors a loose alliance of centrist parties, currently polling 38.5 percent, while a leftist coalition around the Social Democrats is polling at 36.2 percent.

"The important thing for us is to get as much of our policy through as possible, and then it does not matter who we get it through with,” said party leader Richard Jomshof. “Anything is possible.”

Far-right Sweden Democrats Tied with Opposition Party as the Political Right Surges in Europe

    Party leader Jimmie Akesson celebrates at the election night party of the Sweden Democrats in
    Stockholm © Anders Wiklund / Reuters

The far-right anti-immigration party Sweden Democrats are tying for second place with the center-right opposition, a new poll shows. It comes as right-wing parties across Europe see Donald Trump’s victory as a welcome defeat for the establishment.

I confess I don't know a lot about the Sweden Democrats, but I wonder if labeling them "far-right" is an example of the media bias that became so obvious after the election of Trump. Are they actually 'far-right', or are they just far to the right of the media and possibly the current government. One could easily argue that both the media and the government of Sweden are 'left' if not 'far-left'. Consequently, someone leaning to the right, even only somewhat to the right, would appear to be 'far-right' of what the government and the media consider normal - themselves.

According to a poll published on Wednesday by Aftonbladet newspaper, support for the Sweden Democrats (SD) party rose to 21.5 percent, compared with the 13 percent they got in the 2014 general election. While the ruling Social Democrats maintain their lead of 25.7 percent, the Sweden Democrats (SD) are gaining ground on the Moderate Party, the largest opposition party with a popularity of 22 percent.

SD popularity figures are rising for a third month in a row, Aftonbladet adds.

“There is a movement in both Europe and the United States where the establishment is being challenged,” SD leader Jimmie Akesson told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper. “It is clearly happening here as well.”

The poll commissioned by Aftonbladet was carried out by Inizio, which asked 2,051 people over 18 whom they would vote for if parliamentary elections were held today.

The Sweden Democrats growth in popularity is part of a surge in right-wing populism across Europe, with the anti-immigration and Eurosceptic AfD (Alternative for Germany) making huge gains at the expense of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, while the Austrian Freedom Party’s candidate Norbert Hofer is running for the Austrian presidency in elections scheduled for December 4.

Hofer has warned that Austria may leave the EU if Turkey succeeds in joining. The UK of course has already left the EU earlier this year in the much-publicized Brexit, following a campaign by the anti-immigration UKIP party.

The far-right in Europe has been emboldened by the election victory of Donald Trump, seeing it as a backlash to the establishment’s stained reputation. Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front now feels she is a real contender for the 2017 presidential elections

“Donald Trump has made possible what was presented as completely impossible,” Le Pen said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday. “So it’s a sign of hope for those who cannot bear wild globalization. They cannot bear the political life led by the elites.”

Meanwhile, polling organizations were heavily criticized after the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections, where a majority predicted a win for Hillary Clinton.

“What seems to be a minority view in public might be a majority view in private,” Lars Gylling, YouGov's communications manager for the Nordics, told The Local. “There are some things that we don't want to tell even our closest friends, and those things are often tied to nationalism and views on immigrants, especially if they are negative.”

The populist movement is driven significantly by fears over terrorism, immigration and multiculturalism. In Sweden there is a popular perception that the crime rate by migrants and refugees is spiraling out-of-control.

Despite being a relatively low-crime country, there have been alarming reports of over fifty so-called “no-go zones” across Sweden where crime rates are high and police officers are at risk of attack.

Several high-profile incidents, including 38 reported sexual assaults at a Stockholm music festival this summer, have strengthened this view. Although the Swedish Crime Survey reported an 11 percent decrease in such attacks in 2015, the same year which saw a record number of migrants – nearly 163,000 applied for asylum according to the Swedish Migration Agency – the Swedish Democrats are the only party which has addressed voter’s fears directly. Sweden has also contributed the third-most jihadi fighters per capita to the conflict in Syria out of all the EU countries, and there is concern that returning militants will go on to commit terrorist attacks at home.

Newly Arrived Migrants Delighted at Sweden's Border Closure

Even newly arrived migrants realized Sweden was incapable of caring for so many newcomers

Sweden Border Closure Getty

by OLIVER LANE
Breitbart
In a spectacular example of pulling the ladder up, migrants interviewed last night said they were delighted by the introduction of border controls in Sweden.

Despite having been in the country for less than 24-hours, the newly-arrived asylum seekers were already complaining there are too many migrants in Sweden. Speaking to high circulation left-wing daily Afton Bladet, one young man said: “Close the border. We are far too many who have come. They can not take care of all of us”.

He complained the Swedish staff receiving migrants were stressed, and there wasn’t enough bedding to go around.

One Syrian migrant told the paper: “I’m surprised how it is here in Sweden. if they can’t take care of us properly, they should not take so many”.

Surely these people must be far-right extremists to say such things? Huh?

The Swedish minister for interior affairs announced the temporary suspension of the Schengen zone agreement at the southern borders of the nation with Germany and Denmark yesterday evening. The move has surprised many, as only days before the prime minister moved to condemn others who had suggested introducing limited border checks.

Perhaps none were more surprised by yesterday’s announcement than Swedish police, who have been called upon to actually enforce the border checks. A police spokesman said just like the rest of Sweden, they only learnt of the plan as the interior minister made the announcement public, and they spent much of the evening and early morning finding at least an extra 300 officers to man the borders.

The deteriorating level of care for migrants in Sweden may go some way to vindicate the Sweden Democrats, who have come under fire from the left-wing establishment in the country this week over their warnings to migrants that the country was not the utopia they hoped for. Sending volunteers to the Greek islands to hand out leaflets to migrants, the literature warned Sweden was running out of beds and many migrants would be sent home.

Although many media pundits and politicians accused the Sweden Democrats of pushing lies to migrants, the government decision to close the borders today because of overcrowding has gone some way to prove their point.

The question now is, did they do it for sane reasons, or for political expedience? Feeling a little cynical today!