The party is “moderate” only by Swedish standards. To an American, its policies might seem slightly to the left of International ANSWER. The Moderates, like all other parties in Sweden except for Sverigedemokraterna, fully support Sweden’s immigration policies, and have reached out to Hamas in the past.
“Moderate”, min röv.
Their rule is only a lacuna in the long reign of the Social Democrats, who were unexpectedly ousted in the last elections. Given the political culture of Sweden, a return of the Social Democrats seems all but assured, unless Mr. Reinfeldt’s party can find and forge an alliance with a smaller party that would never form a coalition with the Social Democrats.
Enter Sverigedemokraterna (the Sweden Democrats). They are the pariahs of Swedish politics: the only party in the country to oppose the open-ended immigration policies of the Swedish ruling establishment.
That’s why this headline from a couple of days ago came as such a surprise:
Moderate council strikes deal with Sweden Democrats
Members of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s Moderate Party in a town in southern Sweden have defied the party leadership to start cooperating with the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats.
Karlskrona council leader K-G Svensson, a Moderate, reached a deal last week with the Sweden Democrats’ group leader Richard Jomshod, on education in the town.
The Moderate Party’s policy is that its politicians should not cooperate with, negotiate with or become reliant on the Sweden Democrats, which have their roots in racist far-right movements.
Moderate officials in Stockholm were on Wednesday insisting that there was nothing they could do about the situation in Karlskrona.
“We should avoid doing deals with the Sweden Democrats, but local situations sometimes mean that you have to. There are no mechanisms for sanctions for people who break with the policy. It would be wrong to impose diktats centrally,” said the party’s head of communications, Pär Henriksson, to Blekinge Läns Tidning.
Can you tell how worried the Moderates at party HQ were? They were shocked — shocked! — to find their Karlskrona affiliate contemplating an alliance with those evil racist xenophobic neo-Nazi Islamophobes in Sverigedemokraterna.
Fortunately for the party’s reputation, the infatuation with SD didn’t last. Two days later we see this:
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Moderates: ‘no more deals’ with Sweden Democrats
After days of heavy criticism, councillors representing Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s Moderate Party in the southern Swedish port of Karlskrona have said they will strike no more deals with the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats.
A deal between Karlskrona Moderates and Sweden Democrats on education policy revealed on Wednesday led to strong reactions from Reinfeldt and other leading Moderates. The party’s policy is for its elected representatives not to cooperate with the anti-immigrant party.
Moderate council leader K-G Svenson wrote in an internal letter to party colleagues that there would be no further deals with the Sweden Democrats. The two parties’ local branches could still conduct informal talks, but not formal negotiations, he wrote.
Richard Jomshof, group leader for the Sweden Democrats in Karlskrona, said he was not worried by the move, adding that the Moderates would be forced to negotiate with his party later in the current term.
“If they’re not willing to negotiate with us, they will have problems getting their proposals passed,” he said.
This very much resembles the recent movement in Belgium towards Flemish independence: two steps forward and one step back.
There’s no doubt about it: Sverigedemokraterna are a force to be reckoned with. They know it, Moderaterna know it, and everybody else knows it. At some point one or more of the acceptable political parties — the real players in Sweden — are going to have to cut a deal with them.
It’s only a matter of time.
Thanks to KGS, Fjordman, and Paul for keeping me informed on this story.
15 comments:
Moderitaville just needed a few days to ask LGF, Pastorius, and Epaminondas what they should do next.
I'm surprised they were able to get an answer so quick, seeing how everyone in Europe checks with about 15 bloggers in America to make sure white people never explicitly do anything to better their circumstance.
The party is “moderate” only by Swedish standards. To an American, its policies might seem slightly to the left of International ANSWER.
Oh vey, Baron. But this is just the beginning of the "joke".
Moderaterna is what was once the conservative party in Sweden, called the Right Party up until 1969. There's never been any more right-wing party in the Swedish parliament (well, except for New Democracy 1991-1994).
So it's the Swedish Right Party that seem slightly to the left of International ANSWER in foreign affair issues.
Since the Right Party changed it's name to the Moderate Party, the very word moderate has gotten a new meaning in the Swedish language. Swedes are essentially Social Democratic in their thinking and their national identity, after seven decades of Social Democratic hegemony.
"Moderate" is a word hurled after people meaning egoistical capitalist pig. The notch after "moderate" is "fascist".
vincep1974--
heh.
Sodra,
You’re new here, and probably not familiar with our comment rules. We’re lax compared to LGF and Hot Air, but we do have rules. In our case they govern the way comments are delivered, rather than their content — except for O/T, but we’re flexible on that. We like Ed’s weather reports, for example. :)
The GoV ground rules: comments must be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. Details are given here.
Decorum has to do with language and explicit description. IOW we’re generally PG-13.
If someone inadvertently breaks the rules, and the comment is not nasty or hostile, and if I’m not too tired, I try to clean it up and re-post it.
So, with that in mind:
Sodra Djavul said...
I say f**k it.
Play poker. And laugh and dance while Western Civilization burns.
The Baby Boomer generation has infected enough PC-speak that your own natural survivalist responses are considered "racist" and "Nazi."
Who would bother bringing up children in this f****d up world?
- Sodra
GoV is cool because you can censor yourself! I just hit the trash button and killed my own post. Now that's freedom.
Anyway...here it is:
Moderate still means decidedly PC in Sweden. This is dismaying. Moderation to me means something like "common sense." You don't drink too much, eat too much, do too much of certain things (unless you are married), etc. Since moderation is about not being excessive in what you do, then it seems it is on the cautious side in that you would not want to experiment something radical unless you were sure of the outcome. So being moderate implies a certain amount of conservatism - not wanting to see too much change too fast. On the other hand, moderation, again implying a kind of common sense, also implies being open to new ideas if old ones are irrational or arbitrary.
On both scores, both from the more conservative angle and the more open-minded angle, a "moderate" platform that espouses mass immigration seems to be immoderate.
Mass immigration results in abrupt and drastic changes in the traditional makeup of a society, particularly when such immigration comes without significant assimilation. Now MODERATE immigration levels WITH assimilation could be weathered by any society, but mass immigration without assimilation obviously is a radical stress on a host society.
Mass immigration also places huge stresses on the low-wage workers already resident in the target society who have to compete with the newcomers (in the US, competing against those who are illegal and paid sub-legal wages). It results in huge stresses on the public infrastructure, such that the quality of public services often goes down as it is stretched thin. Most seriously, in the case of immigrants who bring immoderate (and decidedly illiberal) prejudices, mass immigration brings with it intolerance and absolutism.
So mass immigration is inherently immoderate.
Nice to see some possible push back. An acquaintance of mine still vacations in Europe with his Danish wife each winter. His impression, from his wife's family and friends, was that Sweden was locked in a downward spiral.
A bit off topic, I was curious if someone could point me to information concerning the EU bureaucracy and the member nations. Specifically what level of power would the Mohammedan need in an EU members government before they could actually impact the policy making councils of the EU itself? I'm trying to update some of my private scenarios.
Baron B: "We like Ed’s weather reports, for example. :)"
No you don't, because so I read at LGF:
Dead Sea Squirrel: "And the Baron has let poor Ed know that his impromptu weather reports are not welcome at GoV, even though he did them all the time here at LGF. But no matter: Charles is the control freak."
50,000 flies can't be wrong: Eat s**t!
---
Wimbledon Womble: "Moderate means..."
In Sweden "moderate" is considered an extreme position, just a notch before "far-right".
Conservative Swede:
Moderaterna seem leftist (or at least as suicidally pro-immigration as the "real" Left), not moderate and certainly not right wing, from an outside perspective.
JDE asked: "what level of power would the Mohammedan need in an EU members government before they could actually impact the policy making councils of the EU itself?"
The short version: by infiltrating the leftist parties, mainly social-democratic ones, they can further accentuate their pro-Islamic agenda and thus attract even more immigrant voters at election-time. A positive feed-back process - or chain-reaction, if you prefer. My estimate is that 20% Muslim members in any given political party is a "critical mass" or a tipping point: either the party becomes full sharia-compliant or splits itself. In the European national parliaments - where only a few MP's can tip the balance of power - this situation gives the Muslims tremendous power.
The EU institutions is another matter. There is no democracy or even majority rule here. The EU Parliament is a toy ("Mickey Mouse") or waste-bucket parliament with no executive power and the MEPs are mainly leftovers from their national parties - a convenient way of getting rid of the fools. The EU Commission and the Council of Ministers hold the executive power, but are not accountable to any elected entity.
The current situation is such that most European governments are more or less social democratic and thus dependant on immigrant voters. This is clearly reflected in contemporary EU policy: unrestricted immigration (called "labor force"), accepting Turkey into the union, the EUROMED (Barcelona) agreements, EAD and so on... Of course all this is in stark contrast with general public opinion and widening the already broad rift between the EU-oligarchy and the people, as was recently demonstrated in French and Dutch referenda on the new so-called "Constitution". Now this "Constitution" will be shovelled down our throats under a new name and without any new referendum - apart from Ireland and maybe Denmark. It will give even more power to the bigger nations, the bureaucrazy, the EU mandarins and thus: the Muslims.
What all this means is that the socialist parties gain their power from the Muslims while indigenous Europeans increasingly flock to the right or ultra-right parties. At some future point - when Sharia really begins to matter - I expect a huge rush of remaining Europeans from the former socialist parties to the right side. Then we'll see the frontline clearly: The EU establishment with their Muslim supporters on one side and the European people on the other.
This cooperation with SD is precisely what I envisaged on the recent Fjordman thread
I do not believe that the BNP can make any real change in the direction we have been headed for the last 50 years without the support of the other main parties, which they would never get. In the end, it will have to be one of the main parties, who got us in this mess, to get the message, and get us out of it. That message they will only get when they are confronted by loss of power, or the prospect of power.
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-farewell-to-little-green-footballs.html#readfurther
It is by such cooperation, forced by nationalist sentiments of the electorate, will mainstream parties change their agenda. Bit by bit, the main parties will have to reflect the views of the electorate or die. They have no choice in the matter, as loss of power is the worst catastrophe.
The only fly in the ointment is the EU. When it has commanding power over all national governments within the EU, it can block national (no more nations but regions within the EU) views or sentiments.
While not conversant with the political parties in the governments of Europe (I had previously filed it under "none of my business"), I did note several years ago that an acquaintance moved to Sweden from Vermont (rather leftist state) because Vermont was "too conservative" and the benefits in Sweden were better.
I did not consider his emigration to be a great blow to the economy of the United States.
The whole notion that SD should be looked at as a "right wing" party is ludicrous. In all political matters besides the immigration politics, they are socialists!
They are protectionists, centralists and generally for the nanny- state.
That does'nt mean that they should'nt be given credit as a serious party today- even if their background is somewhat dubious.
Folkpartiet (center-right) and the Social Democrates are other political partys in Sweden who has close affiliations with nazis in their background (and don't even begin me getting started on "Vänsterpartiet"- former named VPK (The Left party Cummunists). THEY have so many skeletons in the closets that they could arrange a Halloween party three times a day...
No, the problem here is that we really don't have ANY right party in the classical libertanian notion. Carl Bildt (former PM and the sitting foreign affairs minister) once called the left a "red-green mush". He was dead wrong! Because the whole Swedish political scene is a red green mush.
Just some sources I found now...:
Here's an article in which the "Swedish aid-minister" ("development assistance-minister"?) Gunnilla Carlsson (politician in Moderaterna) say that Hamas should have been seen as a legitimate part in a dialogue in the Middle East conflict.
Here Gunilla Carlsson defend last year's 100 million USD Swedish aid to the PA.
Furthermore,here she defend Swedish aid to North Korea with the argument that aid has no connection to the North Korean regime, althou it has connection to the official North Korea. Yes, she seems to be genuinely stupid. (A Moderaterna-moonbat ideologically indoctrinated in socialistic Sweden?)
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