Sweden’s Social Democrats: ‘Every residential area’ must be mixed

When an area reaches over 50 percent residents with a non-Nordic background, powerful efforts must be put in place to bring Swedes to the area or to relocate the immigrants to Swedish areas. “We Social Democrats have always stood for the fact that mixed areas are good,” explained Premier Magdalena Andersson.

Swedish weekly Nya Tider launched an investigation into how the members of the Social Democrats’ party board themselves actually live, and found that not a single person lived in any “mixed” or “diverse” area. The typical Social Democrat party leader instead lives segregated in an affluent and ethnically homogeneous residential area.

Magdalena Andersson, who had been finance minister in the Löfven government since 2014, was elected party chairperson for the Social Democrats (S) during the congress in Gothenburg last autumn. Later that month, she became prime minister under chaotic conditions. Their coalition green party Miljöpartiet (MP) left the government in protest against the passage of an SD-negotiated budget, but Magdalena Andersson still seems to have emerged as the big winner after the tumult.

Andersson announced that she could govern “without problems” with the help of the approved budget.

The voters do not seem to have felt any great pain at the fact that the Green Party left the government – instead, the Social Democrats have shot up public opinion since Andersson formed her one-party government. From having been stable around 25 percent, the Social Democrats are now polling over 30 percent and have thus won back hundreds of thousands of voters in just a few months.

In some measurements, it is even close to 35 percent.

The Social Democrats in 2018 had its worst election result in modern times, but was still clearly the largest party with 28,4 percent of the vote. “It’s the worst result social democracy has gotten in Sweden since we got democracy and universal suffrage,” political scientist Sören Holmberg told SVT. Universal suffrage was introduced in 1921.

Magdalena Andersson says in an interview on SVT that Sweden will remain Sweden, but at the same time she intends to push for continued mass immigration. In addition, she wants “every single area” in Sweden to become multicultural. Many people are now asking what the Prime Minister really means by her definition of Sweden, when she says that it will “remain Sweden”. Statistics from Statistics Sweden show that the Social Democrats’ strongest voter groups are Swedish pensioners and immigrants, and critics believe that immigration is needed to secure government power for the party and prevent losing voter base. Still image: DN

Most important proposal: ‘Break the segregation’

Magdalena Andersson’s clearest promise as newly elected party leader and prime minister was that Sweden should “leave no stone unturned” to break segregation.

Exactly how this is to be achieved in practice seems unclear. Recently, however, Migration Minister Anders Ygeman announced that legislation is being considered on special measures to ensure that no area has more than 50 percent non-European immigrants.

“We have far too high a level of segregation and we have failed in the last 30 years to break segregation. I think it is good if a residential area does not have a majority of people who come from outside Europe,” Ygeman said in an interview with Dagens Nyheter.

He believes that it impairs the possibilities of learning Swedish and getting a job.

The inspiration comes from Denmark, where the Social Democrats have a goal that no more than 30 percent with a non-Western background should live in any area. However, there is an important difference between Sweden and Denmark. In Sweden, the social democratic government continues with a very extensive immigration, while Denmark is focusing increasingly on return migration.

Denmark, for example, has established its own re-migration authority with an active re-migration programme. Asylum policy has been reshaped as well with all asylum seekers being sent to Rwanda to await a decision, effectively causing asylum rates to plummet. They have also rented prison places in Kosovo for foreign criminals. The government’s stated goal is to take the bottom position in Europe in the number of asylum seekers per capita, which is now held by Hungary.

‘There should not be any all-Swedish areas left’

The immigration-critical blog Kulturbilder analyzed Ygeman’s actions.”In Sweden, the proposal thus means that the ever-growing number of immigrants filling the country must be spread over more and more residential areas. A move from Migration and Integration Minister Anders Ygeman recently shows that the government wants to get the Swedes used to the fact that half of the residents in any residential area will soon be made up of migrants from the third world.

“Those who bear the blame for the creation of all areas of exclusion now consider that they have become a burden because so many Swedes have discovered what the politicians have been up to. So now, with the help of a new law, the government wants to force more migrants, ‘new arrivals’, to settle in hitherto unspoiled areas. The idea is that there should not be any all-Swedish areas left.”

To Sweden’s radio P1, Ygeman said about his ambition to spread the immigrants all over Sweden: “Other areas are also allowed to receive newly arrived refugees, which is why I have tabled a law in the Riksdag that distributes refugee responsibility evenly across the country and not just the vulnerable areas.”

But the SD party leader would prefer to live in an ethnically homogeneous area far from the “mixed” areas they claim they like. Niklas Karlsson, the party’s strongman in Skåne, lives in this exclusive area in Landskrona overlooking the Öresund. He is not alone: ​​not a single member of the party board lives multiculturally. The vast majority live in a villa, and the second most popular option is a condominium in Stockholm’s inner city. Wikipedia

Even though the immigrants themselves want to segregate themselves in ethnic enclaves in Sweden where their compatriots already live, they should no longer be allowed to do so.

“That is why I have put forward a proposal to scrap the EBO Act, the Act on Own Settlement, which caused newly arrived refugees to seek especially the vulnerable areas and thus exacerbated the problems,” Ygeman said.

It soon became apparent that Ygeman’s plan was fully in line with the rest of the government and with Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson.

“We Social Democrats have always stood for the fact that mixed areas are good. It would help to reduce segregation. It is not strange at all that we want mixed areas, that throughout Sweden in every single residential area there is a mixture so that Swedish is the main language spoken,” explained Magdelena Andersson in an interview with Aftonbladet.

Exactly how the mixing will be achieved “can be discussed,” she said. Legislation “can be discussed – we are prepared to leave no stone unturned to break segregation”.

“We Social Democrats have the ambition to have mixed areas and also schools where children from different backgrounds can meet and learn from each other, and grow up and become part of this country.”

Importing voters

Critics of the Social Democrats usually emphasize that immigrants constitute an important voter import for the party, as older Social Democrats die out, and that the party therefore wants to keep immigration at as high a level as is politically-strategically possible without existing voters abandoning the party.

Therefore, mass immigration has continued even during the last mandate period, but with a significantly stricter rhetoric to keep existing voters in the dark and even recapture those who have temporarily gone over to SD or the Moderates.

The real policy is considerably less strict than the rhetoric, figures from the Swedish Migration Agency show. Sweden today has the largest immigration ever seen. In both 2020 and 2021, records were broken with first just over 80 000, and then almost 90 000 citizenships. For 2022, the trend continues. From January to July this year, 44 293 new citizenships were awarded. Some 92 000 people were still waiting for citizenship, of which about 90 percent are believed to be approved. Immigrants from Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea receive over half of the citizenships awarded. Less than one percent goes to immigrants from Nordic countries.

The number of asylum seekers has also continued to be huge. Sweden receives more asylum seekers than the other Nordic countries combined. Since 1 January 2018, 78 390 asylum seekers have come to Sweden, the Migration Agency’s latest statistics show. This year alone, over 10 000 asylum seekers have come to Sweden, and that does not include Ukrainian refugees. They make up 44 000, and are counted in addition to the number of ordinary asylum seekers because they arrive according to the EU’s so-called mass refugee directive.

According to Kyösti Tarvainen, associate professor emeritus at Aalto University in Helsinki, the ethnic Swedes will lose their majority position in just over 35 years, by 2058. Figures from Statistics Norway also show that every third mother of children now has a foreign background.

The vast majority of people who want to stay in Sweden for one reason or another are also welcomed. So far this year, over 100 000 residence permits have been issued. As a rule, they will be able to obtain citizenship in four years. These people predominantly vote for the Social Democrats, something that even SVT has no problem admitting. “Some of the Social Democrats’ most reliable sympathizers are the immigrants. In immigrant-dense residential areas in Järvafältet and in Rosengård, the party has support of over 75 percent,” SVT admitted in May.

The voter demographics are also confirmed in SCB’s large party sympathy survey: “The support [for S] is greatest among those aged 65 and over, compared to other age groups. The party has greater support among the foreign-born than among the domestic-born.”

Undue influence on immigrant voters

In previous elections, the party has drawn attention for organizing a so-called “voting school” for immigrants, for example in the Vivalla ghetto in Örebro. The immigrants were then informed about how to vote for the Social Democrats. The then party leader and Prime Minister candidate Mona Sahlin joined in to give a closing speech where she urged everyone to vote Social Democrat, and then the immigrants were herded together to the polling station in Vivalla where the Social Democrats had also set up a tent right outside.

“I just went here to the center with them. I’m not going into the polling station, I didn’t go into the polling booth with them,” Sahlin defended herself just outside the polling station when the Arabs and Africans were seen going in together to vote for the Social Democrats after the short “training” session they received.

Even in this year’s election, the party has been seen in Sweden’s immigrant-dense areas, including Vivalla, which was visited in mid-August to ensure continued support among immigrants. In the SVT report which was broadcast the same evening, no critical questions were asked of Andersson, but the immigrants were encouraged to say how great it was that a prime minister had visited them, and Magdalena Andersson had to answer how she wanted to improve life for all immigrants without taking any responsibility for the problems that could arise.

No one on the party board lives multiculturally

Despite socialists talking about all areas in Sweden being mixed, and that “we Social Democrats have always stood for mixed areas being good”, Nya Tider can reveal that not a single person on the party board has ever lived multiculturally or welcomed spatial “diversity”. NyT’s reporter has carried out a comprehensive survey of how all regular members of the party board live. The results show that all – 100 percent – ​​live in ethnically Swedish areas far removed from multiculturalism.

Ideally, a socialist party leader wants to live in an affluent residential area. Magdalena Andersson herself has chosen to settle in a villa in one of Sweden’s most expensive municipalities, Nacka. She is not alone in that – a clear majority of the members of the party board live in villas.

In second place come expensive condominiums, preferably in Stockholm. Only three of the party board’s 33 regular members live in tenements, and then in white and affluent areas in Linköping, Malmö and Stockholm, far from the problem areas of the cities.

In her inauguration speech as party leader, Magdalena Andersson urged every Social Democrat to ask themselves the following question every day: “What am I doing today to break segregation? I know that if we all do what we can, if we gather all good forces, if we leave no stone unturned, then we will get the job done.”

The whole list: All top Social Democratic party leaders live in pure white Swedish areas:

Tobias Baudin Lives in an apartment that he received from LO, in Vasastaden in Stockholm’s inner city.
Susanna Gideonsson Lives in a residential area in Umeå.
Mikael Damberg Lives in a condominium in Solna.
Lena Micko Lives in a tenement in central Linköping.
Morgan Johansson Lives in a residential area in Lund.
Ardalan Shekarabi Lives in residential area in Knivsta.
Anna-Caren Sätherberg, Jämtland Lives in a condominium in Åre.
Ulf Olsson, Sjuhäradsbygden Lives in a residential area in Borås.
Fredrik Olovsson, Södermanland Lives in a residential area in Katrineholm.
Fredrik Lundh Sammeli, Norrbotten Lives in a townhouse area in Luleå.
Karin Wanngård, Stockholm Lives in a tenement in Älvsjö outside Stockholm.
Kenneth Östberg, Västmanland Lives in a residential area in Norberg.
Vivianne Macdisi, Uppsala county Lives in a residential area in Uppsala.
Niklas Karlsson, Skåne Lives in a residential area in Landskrona.
Helene Fritzon, Scania Lives in a Scania farm outside Åhus.
Åsa Westlund, Stockholm County Lives in a villa in Vendelsö outside Stockholm.
Aida Hadzialic Information about residence is missing.
Lawen Redar Lives in a condominium on Kungsholmen in Stockholm’s inner city.
Matilda Ernkrans Lives in a residential area in Hallsberg.
Ronny Löfqvist, Halland Lives in a residential area in Unnaryd.
Ilan de Basso, Jönköping County Lives in a residential area in Huskvarna.
Helene Björklund, Blekinge Lives in a residential area in Sölvesborg.
Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, Skåne Lives in a rental in Västra hamnen, Malmö (the city’s whitest area).
Hanna Westrén, Gotland Lives in a residential area in Visby.
Mattias Jonsson, Gothenburg Lives in a residential area in Torslanda.
Paula Holmqvist, Fyrbodal Lives in a villa outside Ed.
Isak From, Västerbotten Lives in a residential area in Norsjö.
Teresa Carvalho, Östergötland Lives in a residential area in Norrköping.
Peter Kärnström, Gävleborg Lives in a residential area in Sandviken.
Patric Björk, Skaraborg Lives in a villa outside Åsarp.
Gabriella Lavecchia, Seko, Lives in a condominium in Vasastaden in Stockholm’s inner city.
Johan Lindholm, Byggnads, Lives in an apartment that he received from LO, in Vasastaden in Stockholm’s inner city.