Punishing Those Nasty Swedish Racists

Sweden, you’ve been bad. So we will punish you by bringing in more immigrants!

This, in effect, is the message propagated by Fredrik Reinfeldt, the sitting Prime Minister of Sweden. “Too many people voted for the Sweden Democrats,” he says, “so we are increasing immigration to teach all those racists a lesson!”

It’s hard to believe, but that’s what the man said. You can’t make this stuff up.

And it wasn’t a leaked conversation from a meeting behind closed doors, or a remark made when a microphone was accidentally left on. Mr. Reinfeldt made his statements in public, to students at the University of Stockholm.

And his party is Moderaterna, “The Moderates” — what passes for a conservative party in Sweden.

By the way: If immigration is such a good thing, and enriches our culture so much, how can it be used as a punishment?

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The following article was published in Fria Tider on November 6. Many thanks to our Swedish correspondent LN for the translation:

Reinfeldt admits: Migration settlement was a punishment of the voters

In an unusually hard attack on the Sweden Democrats today the Prime Minister revealed, among other things, that the migration agreement with the Green Party from last year aimed to show SD voters that there will be even greater immigration with SD in parliament.

This morning, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt was a guest-lecturer for students of political science at Stockholm University. (See also Fria Tider’s leader about the lecture). According to the program, he would focus on “the role of politics and how Sweden is affected by the membership in the European Union”, but a large part of the lecture ended up being about the government’s perception of the rapidly growing opposition party: the Sweden Democrats.

Hard to reach SD voters

Among other things, the leader of the Moderates complained that he found it difficult to reach Sweden Democrat voters because they utilize in media channels other than those in which the government’s messages are allowed to stand unchallenged.

“If you believe their description of reality, you sees a very different Sweden. If you listen to it and nothing else, you get a completely different picture of reality, and this makes it incredibly difficult for me to reach them.”

The possibility that they may “reached” through an open debate on the substantive questions was dismissed, however, by Fredrik Reinfeldt, simply because there are too many social problems linked to immigration.

“We do not believe that we can resolve the phenomenon of the Sweden Democrats in an open debate. We must fundamentally understand that there are social problems related to integration and immigration, crime, globalization and the restructuring of Sweden that we have to solve. We must give people hope that these problems can be solved. That’s what we are trying to do.”

The Migration settlement was meant to be a punishment of SD voters. The Prime Minister also provided an interesting revelation in his speech to the students. The agreement with the Green Party, which includes free medical and dental care to persons residing illegally in Sweden, was, according to the Conservative leader, a punishment of SD voters so that they would understand that refugee policy will become even more liberal if you go on voting for the Sweden Democrats.

The message to the voters is that it will not be possible to change immigration policy in a democratic way, because any vote, no matter which party you apply it to, becomes a vote for increased immigration.

“We will isolate them from any influence,” he said, among other things, claiming that it was exactly that he had done when shortly after the election the government concluded an agreement with the Green Party on asylum and migration policy.

“The effect of SD’s entrance into parliament was that we implemented a policy in the opposite direction,” said the Prime Minister contentedly.

These are the words of a man who is comfortable in his position, who has the sense that he is secure inside the redoubt of State power.

Sometimes the Socialists are in control. Sometimes the Moderates are in control. But nothing essential changes; that’s why the Prime Minister can afford to be so smug.

But is he right? Will Sweden always be this way? Or does the growing popularity of Sverigedemokraterna represent a trend that lies outside Mr. Reinfeldt’s control?

We’ll find out before long.