By Selwyn Duke
In 2015, Sweden had the highest (im)migration rate in Europe relative to population. The country became infamous, with stories about failed assimilation, Muslim-controlled “no-go zones,” and immigrationist persecution of nationalists. But then the worm began turning. For almost the first half of 2024 (through May), the nation actually had more emigration than immigration. This resulted from an attitudinal change that had vaulted the anti-immigrationist Sweden Democrats (SD) to influence in 2022.
But there was just another election on Sunday — and, for the first time, the SD lost ground. And why?
Largely because of the immigrant vote. For example, in Rinkeby, a foreigner-heavy Stockholm suburb, the center-left bloc won 94 percent of the vote. As Reuters relates today:
One resident, 59-year-old sociologist Kahin Ahmed, who is originally from Somalia, welcomed the result.
“It’s a huge relief,” he said. “I think people in the suburbs turned out to vote in large numbers because they were afraid the Sweden Democrats would make things worse.”
As is said, “Demography is destiny.”
The Way Things Were … 24 Hours Ago
Just yesterday, before the election results were in, The Telegraph wrote about Sweden’s remigration efforts. Introducing the matter with a story about “Hassan*” (whom the paper is apparently on a first-name basis with) designed for emotional manipulation, the outlet tells us:
Sweden offers 600,000 Swedish kronor (£45,900) [the household cap] to any migrants willing to give up their residency permit.
Hassan said he would use the money to move to Jordan, put his children into private school so they can continue to get a good education, buy a home for the family and start a business.
Repatriation offers used to be unpopular, with just four people offered the grant in 2024. But the Swedish government raised the amount offered and said 171 people have received it this year.
The SD wants to extend the scheme to Swedish citizens.
Hassan’s family must book their own flights out of Sweden. They receive the fund[s] in three instalments: before they leave, when they arrive at their destination and a few months later.
The use of “scheme” above reveals where The Telegraph is coming from. The paper does devote, too, much ink to forging a sob story about Hassan’s plight — while impugning the SD.
“Not long after he arrived,” the paper related, “Sweden had begun introducing some of the strictest asylum laws in Europe. Hassan, 33, said the changes had been accompanied by a rise in discrimination and racism.”
The paper doesn’t mention that merely practicing Christianity in Hassan’s native Syria can be dangerous.
This reflects the problem with immigration, too: The cultural norms that make the Third World dangerous do travel. As The Telegraph relates, quoting Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the SD:
“We have a lot of Islamism and other values that are not welcome in Sweden, and I think that’s why people are angry,” Mr Åkesson, 47, told The Telegraph…. “They don’t like that development, and that’s why they vote for the SD.”
One Step Forward … One Step Back?
Unfortunately for Åkesson (and Sweden herself, many would say), people didn’t vote for the SD quite enough yesterday. As mentioned, the party lost ground for the first time in a national election. It captured approximately 17.6 percent of the vote, down from 20.6 percent in 2022. This meant a third-place finish and an 11-seat loss. The SD should now have about 62 seats.
As is common under parliamentary systems, Sweden has many parties that divide up the vote. This means that an individual party won’t usually win a majority, but, if lucky, just a plurality. Thus is coalition-building necessary to govern.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s “Moderate-led” government is currently in charge. It has been propped up by the SD, though the latter hasn’t been allowed in the cabinet. The SD’s influence is, however, at least partially responsible for the move toward sanity on migration.
Sunday’s results, though, have thus far given Kristersson’s bloc only 173 seats in the 349-seat Riksdag (parliament). One-hundred seventy-five are needed for a majority. The center-left bloc, led by Magdalena Andersson, won about 176 seats, though overseas ballots still need to be counted. (Any bets on whom they’ll break for?) This means she’ll get the first shot at forming a government.
Implications
It is believed, too, that the “new Swede” (immigrant-background) vote put the leftist bloc over the top. Sweden’s most heavily immigrant districts voted 90-plus percent for that bloc. As pro-Western Dutch commenter Eva Vlaardingerbroek pointed out this morning, via the following:
Overall, about 70 percent of non-European-background voters backed the center-left. This amounts to approximately 400,000-600,000 votes in a country of 10.64 million.
Oh, note that Sweden’s population 25 years ago was only about 8.9 million. Why the difference? The country has absorbed 2.5 million immigrants since then.
Great Replacement, anyone?
Consider, too, a calculation indicating that without the non-European-background vote, the moderate bloc would enjoy a clear 181-168 parliamentary majority instead of suffering that 176-173 loss.
The good news, if you can call it that, reports Reuters, is that while
a centre-left government may take a softer [immigration] line, it is unlikely to return to the generous, open-door policies of past decades, analysts say, due to voters’ unease over the levels of immigration and crime.
“I believe the broader shift towards a stricter Swedish migration policy is, for the most part, here to stay,” said Niklas Bohlin, political scientist at the Mid-Sweden University.
This said, due to immigrationism and birthrate patterns, non-European-descent people’s share of Sweden’s population is projected to continue growing. This phenomenon, of course, manifests itself throughout the West.
This is why, a certain observer said during 2015’s nation-rending wave migration, Europe’s new arrivals must “be sent home.” Oh, and this wasn’t uttered by an SD head.
It was stated by Dr. Mudar Zahran — a Jordanian Palestinian academic and self-professed practicing Muslim. For the (im)migration, he warned, amounts to “the soft Islamic conquest of the West” (video below).
In other words, there is positive news. The new Swedish-style immigration status quo means Western culture doesn’t get put under a guillotine. It’s more like a death by a thousand cuts.
*Name was changed by The Telegraph to protect privacy.
This article was originally published at The New American.
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