Immigration Skepticism Goes Mainstream in Denmark, by John Hinderaker.
We have been writing for years about the fact that any European who expresses skepticism about the wisdom of mass immigration is immediately branded “far right,” no matter what his other views may be. This has had the unhealthy effect of driving voters toward parties that, in some cases, have indeed been unsavory.
But it was probably only a matter of time before “mainstream” parties would see the writing on the wall. That is happening in Denmark, currently governed by a conservative, immigration-skeptic coalition. With an election around the corner, the front-runners are the Social Democrats, who are stealing the right’s thunder on Islamic immigration.
In a democracy, the voters will eventually get what they want. And Danish voters have made it clear they are not interested in becoming Libya North.
Mette Frederiksen: the anti-migrant left leader set to win power in Denmark, by Richard Orange.
Mette Frederiksen, leader of Denmark’s opposition Social Democrats, … has all the momentum, with her left-of-centre bloc starting with an eight percentage point lead, and few doubting that she will become Denmark’s youngest-ever prime minister after the election on 5 June. …
Under Frederiksen the party has been ruthlessly reshaped: dragged to the left economically – and sharply to the right on immigration.
“For me, it is becoming increasingly clear that the price of unregulated globalisation, mass immigration and the free movement of labour is paid for by the lower classes,” she wrote in a recent biography.
Denmark’s current right-wing coalition government last year enacted the most anti-immigration legislation in Danish history and, rather than position her party in stark opposition, Frederikson has embraced much of it.
Under her leadership, the SD have called for a cap on “non-western immigrants”, for asylum seekers to be expelled to a reception centre in North Africa, and for all immigrants to be forced to work 37 hours a week in exchange for benefits.
But it is the government policies her party has supported which have been most alarming for her allies in the left-of-centre red bloc. These include a law allowing jewellery to be stripped from refugees, a burqa and niqab ban, mandatory handshakes irrespective of religious sentiment at citizenship ceremonies, and a plan to house criminal asylum seekers on an island used for researching contagious animal diseases. In February, she backed what the DPP has branded a “paradigm shift” – a push to make repatriation, rather than integration, the goal of asylum policy. …
The reaction from working class voters:
Out on the Copenhagen streets, MP Peter Hummelgaard argued that the tough line on immigration was a return to the party’s roots. .. In Tårnby, the working-class area he represents near Copenhagen airport, voters who deserted the party for the Danish People’s party are flooding back, he claimed.
“The reactions that I’m meeting on the street are overwhelming. It is one of the areas where you have seen the consequences of mismanaged immigration, and you have also seen working-class people leaving the Social Democrat party. But they are now returning.”
Simple. But it’s never been put to the voters in this country by any mainstream party for at least five decades.