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[hydrophilic attack]

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.

Actually, long-term this outcome is exactly what M wanted. Their only shot at power has been the Alliance, and S tried to use the current parliamentary situation to break up the Alliance. With this agreement, you no longer need a majority to pass a budget, so no centre-right party has any reason now to leave the Alliance and work with S.

Also, note that the agreement doesn't cover education policy. If you have been following what people have been saying since the 2014 election, it sounds like the Alliance wants to continue to push their education policy and it sounds like SD will support them. The performance of the Swedish education system plummeted after the Alliance took power, and a lot of teachers hated their policies, and it seems we are getting more of it. Joy.

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.

Yup ~100000 per years puts us close to being in the top per capita, when Syria's neighbors take millions per year. Get out of here with that bullshit. The fact that misinformation like this is allowed to thrive only gives SD more power.

 

[rezuth]

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).

They are the third biggest party and elected by the people so their vote should be equal to that. If the parties want them to agree or not, I think shutting them out is idiotic.

We may not like them but they are elected by the swedish people.

 

[pmj]

They are the third biggest party and elected by the people so their vote should be equal to that. If the parties want them to agree or not, I think shutting them out is idiotic.

We may not like them but they are elected by the swedish people.

Yeah, SD was elected, but so were other, less racist parties, and they got far more votes.

87% having to yield to a 13% minority on immigration due to how our political system is designed is kinda fucked.

 

[rezuth]

Yeah, SD was elected, but so were other, less racist parties, and they got far more votes.

87% having to yield to a 13% minority on immigration due to how our political system is designed is kinda fucked.

Then we should change the system instead but for now this is how the cards have been dealt.

 

[berzeli]

They are the third biggest party and elected by the people so their vote should be equal to that. If the parties want them to agree or not, I think shutting them out is idiotic.

We may not like them but they are elected by the swedish people.

... Huh?

That is utter bollocks. By that logic S should have been allowed to govern in 2006 since they were the largest party. Being the third largest party doesn't give you any special mandate, they only have the mandates given by the electorate. No other party is under any obligation to co-operate with them especially since their idea of cooperation essentially is "do everything we want and nothing you want".

And seeing how the other parties went to election on not co-operating with SD and are in the majority they have been given the mandate by the Swedish people to not co-operate with them.

 

[Nivash]

They are the third biggest party and elected by the people so their vote should be equal to that. If the parties want them to agree or not, I think shutting them out is idiotic.

We may not like them but they are elected by the swedish people.

That's not how parliamentary democracy works. We've given them all they're entitled to - 13 % of the seats in parliament, presence in the parliamentary working groups and even the position of vice speaker - which they immediately abused by having him deliver proclamations of how Jews and Sami aren't true Swedes if they retain their minority cultures.

We do not owe them cooperation. If they want the other parties to work with them they have to give them a reason to. So far all they've done is continue to single out and attack immigrants and, when the other parties found this repulsive enough to make cooperation impossible, they tried to throw the country into chaos.

They're pariahs for a reason and will remain that way as long as they continue to demonise some of the weakest groups in society and continue to try to strengthen ethnic divides.

 

[Enkidu]

There is nothing undemocratic about the other parties shutting SD out. As SD did not get a majority of the votes, they have to try and work with the other parties to gain any influence, and if their policies are so abhorrent that no other party is willing to work with them then they will be shut out.

It is stupid to just ignore them though, because SD didn't just pop into existence because a bunch of people woke up one day and decided to be racist xenophobes. There is a problem with immigration/integration, and as long as no other party is willing to acknowledge this then SD has a monopoly on these issues and is able to present "solutions" to problems (which sometimes might not even exist) without anyone challenging them.

 

[Lime]

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%).

Wrong. In Denmark, they have now become the biggest party according to the latest polls, and not only have their racist rhetorics and values infected the political discourse, but it has also all other political parties to be extremely anti-immigrant to the point of nausea. The only party that isn't anti-immigrant now is the most left-wing party.

 

[Nivash]

Wrong. In Denmark, they have now become the biggest party according to the latest polls, and not only have their racist rhetorics and values infected the political discourse, but it has also all other political parties to be extremely anti-immigrant to the point of nausea. The only party that isn't anti-immigrant now is the most left-wing party.

Agreed. I consider Denmark to be a cautionary tale. There's this idea that if you don't engage xenophobic parties and refuse to give their "concerns" the light of day all you do is bottle the pressure up until it explodes. That does not appear to be true at all. All that happened in Denmark was that Dansk Folkeparti got actual power and credibility and, as you say, look where that got them - largest party in the EU election and possible leadership of the country in the near future.

And this is a party that as recently as 2010 wanted to stop all non-western immigration to Denmark.

 

[Royal_Phalanx]

Pretty sure they still do. I believe the aim of their immigration policy is to stop Denmark becoming a 'multi-ethnic society'. Denmark has the toughest migration policy in the whole of Scandinavia, from what I've read.

 

[Irminsul]

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!

Adding to what others already replied, I think especially the last thing you mentioned is quite a bit harder than you think. Parties like SD are successful because they work on feelings and perceptions of reality, not reality itself.

For the perception part, there's polls that people think 20% of their country's population is Muslim. I mean, that's a value that can be looked up with five seconds of research and invalidated by just thinking a bit about it. What do you do against these perceptions? Saying it ain't so won't help.

That said, there's the question whether a population of 20% Muslims would actually be a problem, which is the "feelings" pillar populist parties work on.

That debating with populist parties doesn't work doesn't have anything to do with the "established" parties. It doesn't work because they operate on a fundamentalist basis; they don't negotiate, they'll cry foul until they have you at exactly the point they want you.

There are many examples showing that trying to "integrate" populist parties doesn't work; hell, you could even look at the US and what has happened to the GOP there. Same general process, just within a single party due to the political system of the US.

 

[Lime]

Agreed. I consider Denmark to be a cautionary tale. There's this idea that if you don't engage xenophobic parties and refuse to give their "concerns" the light of day all you do is bottle the pressure up until it explodes. That does not appear to be true at all. All that happened in Denmark was that Dansk Folkeparti got actual power and credibility and, as you say, look where that got them - largest party in the EU election and possible leadership of the country in the near future.

And this is a party that as recently as 2010 wanted to stop all non-western immigration to Denmark.

I think there needs to be a discussion on how to curb and combat racism.

Pretty sure they still do. I believe the aim of their immigration policy is to stop Denmark becoming a 'multi-ethnic society'. Denmark has the toughest migration policy in the whole of Scandinavia, from what I've read.

It is super strict and super tough to get in here. I had to leave my American partner because we had to scrap together 60.000 DKK (~12.000 USD) if we took the "easiest way out" by marrying. Alternatively, getting a regular Green card requires you to have 90.000 DKK at your disposal along with a point system that evaluates your language, education, profession, etc., i.e. basically discriminating. It was just way too tough and strict for us to be together here in DK.

And currently we now have had a discussion on refugees where the government (the supposedly left-winged parties) basically made it so that refugees from Syria can't get their children and wives with them. All because of racism and the incorrect fear that people from other countries are lazy, will do crime, and will leech on the welfare system. It's so fucking infuriating and embarrassing (and I'm not the only Dane who feel like this).