Åkesson: This Autumn's Election Will Be Another Immigration Election

In a couple of columns in Expressen, the newspaper discusses the Tidö government’s stricter – or rather normalized – immigration policy and the recent highly publicized deportation cases that the media have distorted to the best of their ability, conveniently placing them ahead of this autumn’s election. This has led SD leader Jimmie Åkesson to note that the immigration debate is returning to where it was ten years ago, and that the September election will once again focus on migration.

It is Expressen’s political editor Patrik Kronqvist and culture editor Victor Malm who together echo the era when immigration was the most sensitive and sacred question, and no one was allowed to question it, no matter how obviously destructive the result was for all to see.

Under the headline “The government must say no to SD on immigration,” Kronqvist wrote on Saturday that “from an international perspective, the reforms implemented are not particularly extreme but have, in broad terms, made Sweden more similar to other Western democracies.”

At the same time, it is claimed that “The Sweden Democrats’ project is fundamentally different” and that it involves “turning back the clock on immigration and getting people to return home on a large scale.”

That Åkesson insists on withdrawing already granted permanent residence permits after the election is of a completely different magnitude. That is a reform affecting at least 100,000 people who have already been promised that they can stay here.

This is a policy that bourgeois parties should not support.

The following day, on Sunday, it was Victor Malm’s turn with the headline “Sweden is multicultural – SD can’t change that.” There, Malm writes, among other things, about the false narrative of “baby deportations” that Swedish Radio recently fabricated and the entire left swallowed without criticism.

Sweden is a multicultural country. It will remain so. Dissatisfaction with this development is a partial explanation for the growth of the Sweden Democrats, but very few outside the radicalized, influential minority on X believe that a democratic country – whose great legacy and historical identity is a steadfast humanist backbone – can accept a purge policy aimed at diversity and difference. The stench arises immediately, everyone recognizes it: cellars, cheap beer.

The columns caused Jimmie Åkesson to react and note that the debate, despite everything, does not seem to have moved much since the migrant crisis in 2015 and the days when one could be punished in various ways simply for questioning immigration policy.

Åkesson:

The debate on immigration has, since the worst chaos ten years ago, been relatively sober. The extremists, who for decades led and defended Sweden’s headless policy, of course have not ceased to exist. However, they have been so clearly at a public opinion disadvantage that they have chosen to remain silent and – it seems – bided their time. And now they are resurfacing.

Åkesson further asserts that the Swedish immigration debate has, in recent weeks, traveled back 10–15 years in time, with the left-liberal media competing to pump out individual cases and, “through grand journalistic creativity, managing to piece together the most heart-wrenching case.”

Regarding Swedish Radio’s “grotesque fabrication about the deportation of infants,” Åkesson writes that it would surprise him if this case becomes the ultimate winner in this race, as more is likely to come the closer the election gets.

Of course, immigration policy must be reasonable and accurate. It is crucial for legitimacy that the reforms implemented are in line with the public sense of justice. But we must not let ideologically driven immigration liberals shift focus from the bigger picture. Tough reforms do not become less necessary just because a relatively small number – more or less unfairly – fall through the cracks when new rules are implemented.

Basically, neither the “Social Democrats” nor the “posh conservatives” understand what they have done wrong historically, and they are weathercocks, Åkesson warns.

The election this autumn will thus be yet another immigration election. On the one hand, it’s about stopping the Social Democrats’ forced mixing; on the other, it’s about countering every attempt to erode the necessary reforms we’ve put in place during this mandate period.