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[Joni]

Imagine the unthinkable happening. A Blue-Red coalition. The Purple Party!

Purple coalitions are awful.

 

[SquiddyCracker]

Wooot!

Alliance-set about to reap some votes and get a majority government.
Socialists can suck it, there's no way they're getting re-elected after such a short tenure.

 

[Harlock]

Nordic countries was the most close we had of Star Trek TNG society.

 

[old]

I doubt non-Swedes will care about this particular topic on this forum. Can't we keep it in the Sweden-GAF thread?

Hell, no. I love learning what's going on elsewhere. This is fascinating. I'd love to see the SD budget but I doubt there's an English version of it.

 

[Yazan]

Best thing. No more Magdalena Andersson.

 

[Lime]

Dear Sweden, please continue with the anti-racist approach to the public discourse. And please dont become like Denmark by allowing implicitly racist parties and values into the election and political debate. Within the last 15 years, the party similar to SD have not only become a dominating force in Danish politics, but their manipulations and dog whistle racism have infected the other parties and now racism have become so ingrained into everyone's mindsets that we can't even talk about color and culture without perpetuating fundamental racism.

I dont want Sweden to become that. And SD worries me.

 

[ICKE]

The worst thing is they are just clearly racist. They recently said "we want less Morrocan people in our streets". Now that's fucking scary, even tho I am not Morrocan.

Attitudes tend to change when you have a bunch of youngsters in gangs beating up people, officials failing to conduct proper city planning so good areas turn to troublesome neighborhoods and then suddenly lower income voters live in an area that is not so appealing anymore. You can't talk about it without being labelled a xenophobe and generally speaking it seems as if only one element in every European country raises the question : "Is our immigration policy working properly?".

So what do you think happens when the establishment refuses to engage these ideas properly and the populists can then explain how current politicians are completely disconnected from reality. There are a lot of racist elements within these parties, outright lunatics as well of course, but it doesn't help when you try to pretend that their voter block does not exist or they do not matter at all politically speaking. FN, SD, PS and all other populist parties in Europe have gained traction, because we like to keep up appearances, pretend like somehow this discussion about immigration is beneath our tolerant society.

And the only way you SD out from the political process completely is to build a rainbow coalition. That always means that a center-right approach is implemented and it would destroy whatever integrity the left wing parties have in the eyes of the voters.

 

[Jokab]

Attitudes tend to change when you have a bunch of youngsters in gangs beating up people, officials failing to conduct proper city planning so good areas turn to troublesome neighborhoods and then suddenly lower income voters live in an area that is not so appealing anymore. You can't talk about it without being labelled a xenophobe and generally speaking it seems as if only one element in every European country raises the question : "Is our immigration policy working properly?".

So what do you think happens when the establishment refuses to engage these ideas properly and the populists can then explain how current politicians are completely disconnected from reality. There are a lot of racist elements within these parties, outright lunatics as well of course, but it doesn't help when you try to pretend that their voter block does not exist or they do not matter at all politically speaking. FN, SD, PS and all other populist parties in Europe have gained traction, because we like to keep up appearances, pretend like somehow this discussion about immigration is beneath our tolerant society.

This is the issue I have as well. There is no way of even bringing up the issue of integration or immigration, or in any way criticizing the way it's handled right now without being labeled a racist. I feel integration in Sweden is very poor, with every major city (and many smaller for that matter) having 'bad' neighborhoods where it feels like all the immigrants are dumped and left to their own demise. Anecdotally, schools in these areas tend to be chaotic, where the kids are not given an environment where they can thrive and educate themselves due to all the background noise.

No party in the Riksdag, neither SD nor the other parties, has a working integration strategy, which is why I think most people go to SD; "if no one has integration strategies, the second best solution is to shut the borders". I heavily disagree with this reasoning, but it's troubling that the integration is so lacking. And I feel it all goes back to the fear of being labeled a racist in some way.

 

[eot]

Voter turnout will probably be lower than usual, I wonder how that'll affect the results.

 

[SquiddyCracker]

Voter turnout will probably be lower than usual, I wonder how that'll affect the results.

More SD, for sure.
Which is a shame.

 

[ICKE]

Voter turnout will probably be lower than usual, I wonder how that'll affect the results.

You don't really have to guess, right wing parties will make significant gains.

The European left-wing parties are a bunch of incompetent losers these days. Unable to govern properly, unable to engage their opposition, unable to present alternatives to austerity measures and just generally unable to do fuck all.

Social democrats used to have a Royal flush in Finland. They controlled the government and the presidency ten years ago but are now lucky to get over 15% of the vote. You can add the socialists and the total support left has in this country is about 25% at this point. It is hard to blame voters for not wanting to associate with such a sorry bunch. At least the right wing parties and populists can sell their policies properly - have dynamic campaigns and what not.

 

[Royal_Phalanx]

This is the issue I have as well. There is no way of even bringing up the issue of integration or immigration, or in any way criticizing the way it's handled right now without being labeled a racist. I feel integration in Sweden is very poor, with every major city (and many smaller for that matter) having 'bad' neighborhoods where it feels like all the immigrants are dumped and left to their own demise. Anecdotally, schools in these areas tend to be chaotic, where the kids are not given an environment where they can thrive and educate themselves due to all the background noise.

No party in the Riksdag, neither SD nor the other parties, has a working integration strategy, which is why I think most people go to SD; "if no one has integration strategies, the second best solution is to shut the borders". I heavily disagree with this reasoning, but it's troubling that the integration is so lacking. And I feel it all goes back to the fear of being labeled a racist in some way.

I think this is where the problem lies. If you don't confront these parties (SD,FN, PVV, UKIP, etc.) and debate with them, and instead ignore them at every turn whilst not offering your own solutions, this leaves people who have concerns but otherwise don't agree with these parties' manifestoes nowhere else to turn.

It seems from what you describe, the situation is pretty similar to the UK, which also has terrible integration policies which nobody wants to fix, hence people going to UKIP, though from what little I know of SD, UKIP is much less bad than they are, UKIP at least officially tries to be inclusive and rejects racism and the far right, though I'm sure a large amount of their supporters would agree with stuff that SD, FN and other populist far right parties say.

 

[Paganmoon]

This is the issue I have as well. There is no way of even bringing up the issue of integration or immigration, or in any way criticizing the way it's handled right now without being labeled a racist. I feel integration in Sweden is very poor, with every major city (and many smaller for that matter) having 'bad' neighborhoods where it feels like all the immigrants are dumped and left to their own demise. Anecdotally, schools in these areas tend to be chaotic, where the kids are not given an environment where they can thrive and educate themselves due to all the background noise.

No party in the Riksdag, neither SD nor the other parties, has a working integration strategy, which is why I think most people go to SD; "if no one has integration strategies, the second best solution is to shut the borders". I heavily disagree with this reasoning, but it's troubling that the integration is so lacking. And I feel it all goes back to the fear of being labeled a racist in some way.

Their strategy is not shunning them and not seeing and treating them as a burden, which is what SD does, cause that does not help one bit with them being integrated into society.

And the poorer people, living in neighborhoods with other less fortunate, tend to more often fall into crime or criminal activity. It just so happens that more immigrants live in such neighborhoods, not by choice, but cause they can't afford anything else. The problem is we're going more and more towards a segregated class society in Sweden, more so than ever before.

Neighborhoods don't "turn bad" cause there are too many immigrants there, more like, immigrants "turn bad" cause they get shunned, and pushed to somewhere they don't want to be.
And that's not even really true, as I don't buy the "more immigrants are criminal" mindset. It just looks that way as they're overrepresented within poorer parts of society.

 

[Nabbis]

This is what you get when you fuck up on making a rational immigration policy. If the populists win then it only means that everyone else has not done their job properly. Seen this coming from a mile away.

 

[Nivash]

Hell, no. I love learning what's going on elsewhere. This is fascinating. I'd love to see the SD budget but I doubt there's an English version of it.

There's only really one point you need to know about: through "responsible immigration policy" they claim to be able to save 190 billion SEK that they can redistribute for their other projects.

Let me put that in perspective for you: the total government spending for 2014 was 869 billion. In other words, they claim they can cut state expenditures by 22 % through immigration reform - in a single year! That's more than the budget for the Armed Forces, the state level funding for the justice and healthcare systems and foreign aid combined!

The budget for 2014 puts immigration at 10 billion and integration at 9. When other parties discuss how much to spend on different posts SD rejects that reality and substitutes their own.

 

[Forsete]

There's only really one point you need to know about: through "responsible immigration policy" they claim to be able to save 190 billion SEK that they can redistribute for their other projects.

Let me put that in perspective for you: the total government spending for 2014 was 869 billion. In other words, they claim they can cut state expenditures by 22 % through immigration reform - in a single year! That's more than the budget for the Armed Forces, the state level funding for the justice and healthcare systems and foreign aid combined!

The budget for 2014 puts immigration at 10 billion and integration at 9. When other parties discuss how much to spend on different posts SD rejects that reality and substitutes their own.

Its way more than 19 billion though.

Calculations vary between 40 billion up to 250 billion.
Just this year Migrationsverket needs an extra 48 billion over 4 years.

 

[thezerofire]

Is there a place that runs down the parties and what they stand for? I'd like to be able to keep up but I don't know where to start

 

[Nivash]

Its way more than 19 billion though.

Calculations vary between 40 billion up to 250 billion.
Just this year Migrationsverket needs an extra 48 billion over 4 years.

Sure, but most of that is on a county level, if you go with SD retorik, in the form of welfare. It's not included in the budget. And that's not even touching the fact that those costs would still be there even if immigration hit zero because the immigrants supposedly costing that much would still be here.

I'm sorry, there's just no way in hell you can arrive at being able to save 190 billion in one year through immigration reform.

It doesn't even make sense on their own webpage: https://sverigedemokraterna.se/sd-presenterar-budgetforslag/

They state that, through their own calculations, the government will spend 150 billion on immigration. They then claim that it won't be enough which, somehow, allows them to "save" 190 billion. Assuming that's not the supposed budget for Migrationsverket (which would be utterly insane) you couldn't cut the total costs of immigration to what is basically zero and then some even if you cut immigration to zero. You couldn't do it even if you rounded up and shot every immigrant in Sweden.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

I live in the UK, and I was previously seriously thinking about trying to study a masters degree in Sweden (and try to learn Swedish whilst doing it) with the hope that I'd be able to move over permanently but am not so sure anymore with the whole Sweden Democrat thing, especially since I would be an immigrant in that case and also I'm ethnically Chinese (though I was born in the UK and have lived there all the time), so I am looking at this situation with concern. Are Sverigedemokraterna actually as racist/xenophobic as people have been claiming, and is Sweden's immigration policy really "open-border" and therefore unreasonable as they claim? I've looked at the website of Migrationsverket for the process you need to go through to move to Sweden and it seems pretty similar to the policy that Norway uses for both EU/EEA applicants and non EU/EEA applicants. The only difference is that it seems that you can get citizenship a lot faster than in Norway and other Nordic countries.It's pretty depressing to see a once liberal and open Sweden going in a reactionary, nationalist direction all of a sudden, looking from outside...

Norway is a lot more restrictive towards fugitive immigration because their SD equivalent is considered acceptable to work with by the other parties, and they have gotten a lot more power thanks to that. Before the Norwegian election last year a representative for that party suggested that a wall should be built along the Syrian-Egyptian border so that Europe wouldn't have to deal with so many fugitives. That party is now one of the two parties in the government.

The big difference between Sweden and other countries, is that most other countries put up a quota on how many fugitives to accept. But in Sweden we take the humanitarian view that there is no difference between fugitive number 10000 and fugitive number 10001. If they both need out of their home countries, they should both be accepted here. An arbitrary quota doesn't change the fact that they are both in danger in their home countries. For this reason, we determine for every asylum seeker whether they have a good enough reason to stay here or not, regardless of how many people we have previously accepted here. So for example, the Swedish immigration agency has decided that any asylum seeker from Syria these days will be accepted, because the current situation there is so bad.

Another big difference compared to other countries is generous rules for immigration of close family members of the people that have already received a residency permit. So if a father is accepted, he will in most cases be allowed to bring his wife and kids too.

So the reason that immigration to Sweden is high compared to other countries is that while most of the rest of the world has abandoned their duties as human beings, we have not. But I have hopes that in the long term, other countries will come around to our point of view. Due to the demographic issues facing Europe, they likely have to, sooner or later.

But this is not to say that we don't have issues with integration of some of the people coming here. We do and we should not be afraid to admit that and try to find solutions. But the fact that we have these problems does not change the fact that there are people in need. So we should solve our issues with integration, but not abandon our duty to our fellow man, by reducing the number of fugitives accepted.

edit:

@Hydrophilic attack: I'm beginning to like you, can I vote for you in the coming election?

Ha, hopefully, by the time the next regular election comes around in 2018 I will have wrapped up my Ph.D. and will be looking for a job. So maybe? But, seriously, I think going from engineering into politics is slightly too large a leap. But my sister will likely be running for local government for the social democrats in her municipality. (This year she got less than ten votes lol, but maybe next time around she will be higher on the list.)

 

[Paganmoon]

Iirc, a lot of the money spent on newly arrived immigrants, goes to the counties that take them in. Money that in turn has been used in many counties to save schools that were about to shut down, due to decreasing budgets and population. Those schools can now keep open, which is good for the local inhabitants, and good for the immigrants.

@Hydrophilic attack: I'm beginning to like you, can I vote for you in the coming election?

 

[hydrophilic attack]

So I finally got around to updating the OP. I removed the original OT completely since the situation escalated very quickly and the original OP is no longer relevant.

 

[Paganmoon]

Ha, hopefully, by the time the next regular election comes around in 2018 I will have wrapped up my Ph.D. and will be looking for a job. So maybe? But, seriously, I think going from engineering into politics is slightly too large a leap. But my sister will likely be running for local government for the social democrats in her municipality. (This year she got less than ten votes lol, but maybe next time around she will be higher on the list.)

Honestly, we need more people in the government that haven't spent their whole lives as politicians, and their sole purpose being to sit in parliament. We need people who've actually lived in the real world, had "real" jobs.

That's one thing I like about Löfven, He's worked as a welder for a big part of his life. A fact that some in the opposition thought of as "un-statementlike", which sort of blows my mind.

New threads for new news. I very much doubt the rest of the world cares about the 99% of US topics at times, but they're still posted, not pigeonholed into community threads. I didn't know about this in Sweden, but I do know now. Why would you want it kept in Sweden-GAF?

We want to hide our shame, it is the Swedish way.

 

[Madness]

I doubt non-Swedes will care about this particular topic on this forum. Can't we keep it in the Sweden-GAF thread?

New threads for new news. I very much doubt the rest of the world cares about the 99% of US topics at times, but they're still posted, not pigeonholed into community threads. I didn't know about this in Sweden, but I do know now. Why would you want it kept in Sweden-GAF?

 

[Jokab]

Their strategy is not shunning them and not seeing and treating them as a burden, which is what SD does, cause that does not help one bit with them being integrated into society.

And the poorer people, living in neighborhoods with other less fortunate, tend to more often fall into crime or criminal activity. It just so happens that more immigrants live in such neighborhoods, not by choice, but cause they can't afford anything else. The problem is we're going more and more towards a segregated class society in Sweden, more so than ever before.

Neighborhoods don't "turn bad" cause there are too many immigrants there, more like, immigrants "turn bad" cause they get shunned, and pushed to somewhere they don't want to be.
And that's not even really true, as I don't buy the "more immigrants are criminal" mindset. It just looks that way as they're overrepresented within poorer parts of society.

I agree with all of this.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Honestly, we need more people in the government that haven't spent their whole lives as politicians, and their sole purpose being to sit in parliament. We need people who've actually lived in the real world, had "real" jobs.

That's one thing I like about Löfven, He's worked as a welder for a big part of his life. A fact that some in the opposition thought of as "un-statementlike", which sort of blows my mind.

Agreed.

 

[lazygecko]

Spreading out settling immigrants more evenly across the country helps with integration. There's no incentive to adapt and interact with the "outside" society if everyone just gets lumped together into the same area. But the smaller local communities are very hesitant on allowing that, so it becomes a catch 22.

 

[CoolOff]

Bumping this since the new election has been called off, due to an agreement between six parties

Spoiler

(S, MP from the left, M, KD, C, FP from the right)

to not block minority governments budgets over the next 8 years. I'm still confused as to what it actually means in practice, but yeah, no election next year.

My guess is that there will be a revolt in M within the next year, symbolically this is huge. The right is basically giving up any sort of legitimate opposition until 2018.

 

[obin_gam]

I get that alot of moderates are quite pissed now. As a Lefty I am a bitcranky that the Left Party wasnt invited from the beginning. But alas, the important thing is that the Sweden Democrats are now completely left out in the cold, as a fascist party should be.

They really thought they could bully the parliament into submission? What a bunch of a-holes.

 

[rezuth]

This was the probably worst thing they could have done. They will only make SD more legit by ignoring them and letting them say whatever they wish.

 

[Forsete]

Batra should thank her lucky stars its not the members we ho decides the new M leader, or she would be toast. M basically did a walk over. Moderates seem super pissed off. 4 years of politics influenced by communist and tree huggers is probably what they fear most.

Haha. Exciting times!

 

[FlyinJ]

This was the probably worst thing they could have done. They will only give make SD more legit by ignoring them and letting them say whatever they wish.

Can someone translate what this poster is trying to say into something comprehensible?

EDIT: also the post above. Tree hugging Communists? What?

 

[Nivash]

I've seen some articles today, like this one:

http://mobil.svd.se/nyheter/regeringen-kan-fa-stryk-i-sakfragor_svd-4216267

That speculate that the government can still get its ass kicked on every question in parliament that's not directly related to the budget because they're not covered by the agreement. Basically, as long as SD keeps voting with the opposition - which they probably will, out of spite if nothing else - they government could lose out on key questions like school reform or infrastructure.

We're in for a weird 4 years or more.

 

[obin_gam]

New thread title? "Swedish Prime Minister makes deal with opposition, creating a joint government, excluding xenophobes."

 

[MistakenMobius]

Can someone translate what this poster is trying to say into something comprehensible?

Easy: like in France, those type of party are around 15% of the electorate and those people (usually former left voters that are poor people) felt screwed over by the system
Basically today, SD will be able to say that they are the only one not part of the system and all the major party are conspiring to screw over the little man.
What happened today is basically a fuck you to 15% of swedish people and you will be able to add at the next election all the moderates who are feeling betrayed.

People should never forget that the rethoric of far-righ party is only marginally different than the one from the far-left, only the scapegoat change.

 

[FlyinJ]

Easy: like in France, those type of party are around 15% of the electorate and those people (usually former left voters that are poor people) felt screwed over by the system
Basically today, SD will be able to say that they are the only one not part of the system and all the major party are conspiring to screw over the little man.
What happened today is basically a fuck you to 15% of swedish people and you will be able to add at the next election all the moderates who are feeling betrayed.

People should never forget that the rethoric of far-righ party is only marginally different than the one from the far-left, only the scapegoat change.

I'm sorry, but this is still very broken English and hard to understand.

My vague understanding of what is happening there is that the jingoistic racist party that has been tricking the working class of Sweden into thinking that foreigners are taking their jobs has lost political clout?

 

[CoolOff]

To contextualize a bit, Sweden is trying the Austrian way of dealing with xenophobic parties, like what happened to FPÖ back in the late 90's. In Norway and Denmark, these parties have been "accepted" as a political reality, been given some influence, and then stabilized at ~15%. FPÖ instead pushed towards 30% after the two major parties there decided to co-operate to shut them out.

SD has doubled in every election in the last 16 years, after this I can easily see them double again in 2018 (26%).

 

[MistakenMobius]

I'm sorry, but this is still very broken English and hard to understand.

My vague understanding of what is happening there is that the jingoistic racist party that has been tricking the working class of Sweden into thinking that foreigners are taking their jobs has lost political clout?

No every other else has decided to block them out, it doesn't work.
It's not working in Belgium (NVA went up to 30% and there was no more way around it)
It's not working in France (FN keeps rising and present himself as against the UMPS aparatchick system (UMP + PS)
It will be the same in Sweden

Also the argument "taking our jebs" is also used by the left when speaking about delocalization process, factory closing and such.

 

[FlyinJ]

To contextualize a bit, Sweden is trying the Austrian way of dealing with xenophobic parties, like what happened to FPÖ back in the late 90's. In Norway and Denmark, these parties have been "accepted" as a political reality, been given some influence, and then stabilized at ~15%. FPÖ instead pushed towards 30% after the two major parties there decided to co-operate to shut them out.

SD has doubled in every election in the last 16 years, after this I can easily see them double again in 2018 (26%).

Holy shit that is scary.

What are they going to do to combat that?

 

[CoolOff]

Holy shit that is scary.

What are they going to do to combat that?

 

[Forsete]

Holy shit that is scary.

What are they going to do to combat that?

Strategy is obvious, continue blocking them and hope they go away.

 

[Irminsul]

Well, the thing is, I don't know if there really is a working alternative. You mentioned that this was the "Austrian way"... But in Austria, FPÖ actually got to be part of the government, resulting in a bunch of corruption trials still going on, involving many well-known figures of said party and it didn't hurt them one bit.

What do you do against this? Populism is hard to combat.

 

[CadetMahoney]

Why does Sweden have a huge problem with immigration? Like is there a law mandating them to take in immigrants from Syria etc.

 

[CoolOff]

Why does Sweden have a huge problem with immigration? Like is there a law mandating them to take in immigrants from Syria etc.

Volumes really. One of the highest (if not the highest now since Germany is pulling back a bit?) levels of asylum seekers/capita.

We can't house them, tiny towns with 200 citizens suddenly have 80 Syrian refugees sent their way. It's just not practically viable anymore.

No law, just a public discourse that completely refuses to discuss the issues due to fear of accomodating SD.

 

[obin_gam]

Why does Sweden have a huge problem with immigration? Like is there a law mandating them to take in immigrants from Syria etc.

We don't.

It's just that the welfare here has worked so well that people are grasping at straws for something to be mad about. And the obvious and easiest thing is to blame whatever trouble you currently are living through, on immigrants.

 

[Tacitus_]

Why does Sweden have a huge problem with immigration? Like is there a law mandating them to take in immigrants from Syria etc.

They seem to want to cure the world just by themselves.

 

[rezuth]

Well, the thing is, I don't know if there really is a working alternative. You mentioned that this was the "Austrian way"... But in Austria, FPÖ actually got to be part of the government, resulting in a bunch of corruption trials still going on, involving many well-known figures of said party and it didn't hurt them one bit.

What do you do against this? Populism is hard to combat.

Stop ignoring them, do proper debates with them, talk about immigration and the cost, talk about the economy, stop trying to shield everyone from the truth. KEEP IT REAL!

Explain why immigration is needed and why its something positive. Yes it has a certain cost associated with it but we have to do our part in sharing. Ignoring the problem wont make it go away.

 

[peakish]

Not every decision has to be made with SD's best or worst in mind. And even so, they would probably be the only winners in a re-election, where either political block likely would have to cater to them to pass a budget. Should 13 percent have full power over the remaining 87 percent? Nonsense.

The parties need to find a way to deal with them, but this stupid re-election was not that. I'm very happy about the parties making it easier to govern from a minority position (as are most Swedes, going by polls).

 

[Inkvoterad]

After Jimmie Åkesson left SD they seem to be spiraling it of control more than ever. Which is good because maybe finally people can stop being so ignorant and see SD for what shitty racists they are.

 

[Lovely Salsa]

After Jimmie Åkesson left SD they seem to be spiraling it of control more than ever. Which is good because maybe finally people can stop being so ignorant and see SD for what shitty racists they are.

Pretty sure the SD leader can Sieg Heil at this point and they'd still gain support.

Now that the decision came that SD won't get any influence for at least 8 years pretty much guarantees they're going to get 30%+ of the votes in the future

 

[SquiddyCracker]

They should have just gone through with a re-election, at least then there was the chance of the people blaming SD for not going along with praxis and causing the mess.

Now SD gets to play the underdog, "shut down voice of the people"-card for another 4 years, and next time they'll probably get 30% of the votes.