This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/19/denmark-kristian-thulesen-dahl-populist-tide
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Danish rightwinger Kristian Thulesen Dahl rides high on populist tide | Danish rightwinger Kristian Thulesen Dahl rides high on populist tide |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| When Kristian Thulesen Dahl first heard that election-night exit polls were predicting a doubling of support for his populist, rightwing Danish People’s party (DPP), he burst into song. Cheered on by supporters on a stage in Copenhagen, he led the celebrations with a rendition of the Liverpool FC anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone. | When Kristian Thulesen Dahl first heard that election-night exit polls were predicting a doubling of support for his populist, rightwing Danish People’s party (DPP), he burst into song. Cheered on by supporters on a stage in Copenhagen, he led the celebrations with a rendition of the Liverpool FC anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone. |
| Thulesen Dahl’s companionable choice of song was not out of place in a country that pays close attention to British politics and lifestyles. Last week the multiparty right-of-centre alliance that is now expected to take power in Denmark, led by Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s Venstre (Liberal) party, pledged supportfor David Cameron’s efforts to reform the European Union. And the outgoing Social Democrat prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, is married to the son of the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock. | Thulesen Dahl’s companionable choice of song was not out of place in a country that pays close attention to British politics and lifestyles. Last week the multiparty right-of-centre alliance that is now expected to take power in Denmark, led by Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s Venstre (Liberal) party, pledged supportfor David Cameron’s efforts to reform the European Union. And the outgoing Social Democrat prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, is married to the son of the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock. |
| Related: Danish People’s party leader demands border crackdown after election success | Related: Danish People’s party leader demands border crackdown after election success |
| Thulesen Dahl’s success in helping the DPP become the second-largest party in Denmark’s parliament, the Folketing, with 21% of the vote, sets a daunting precedent that Britain’s Ukip – with which the DPP is sometimes compared – can only dream of matching. Whatever people may say about the clean-cut, politically savvy Thulesen Dahl and his divisive anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-Brussels stance, he is no Nigel Farage. | Thulesen Dahl’s success in helping the DPP become the second-largest party in Denmark’s parliament, the Folketing, with 21% of the vote, sets a daunting precedent that Britain’s Ukip – with which the DPP is sometimes compared – can only dream of matching. Whatever people may say about the clean-cut, politically savvy Thulesen Dahl and his divisive anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-Brussels stance, he is no Nigel Farage. |
| Soft-spoken and plausible, the 45-year-old Thulesen Dahl ran on a platform that appealed to anti-foreigner and nationalist sentiment while promising a range of incentives, particularly to the “grey vote”, including improved healthcare provision for elderly people and higher public-sector spending. | Soft-spoken and plausible, the 45-year-old Thulesen Dahl ran on a platform that appealed to anti-foreigner and nationalist sentiment while promising a range of incentives, particularly to the “grey vote”, including improved healthcare provision for elderly people and higher public-sector spending. |
| Ignoring opponents’ claims that his sums did not add up, he offered to finance increased welfare benefits and pensions by cutting spending on settling and housing asylum seekers, refugees and EU immigrants. Coincidentally or not, 43% of DPP voters were older than 60. | Ignoring opponents’ claims that his sums did not add up, he offered to finance increased welfare benefits and pensions by cutting spending on settling and housing asylum seekers, refugees and EU immigrants. Coincidentally or not, 43% of DPP voters were older than 60. |
| It was a seductive campaign narrative that pulled rival parties, including Thorning-Schmidt’s Social Democrats, to the right while denying them a clearly separate ideological identity. A similar phenomenon is evident across Scandinavia – and to some degree, in Britain – where the left has lost control of the agenda and is failing to provide credible alternative answers. | It was a seductive campaign narrative that pulled rival parties, including Thorning-Schmidt’s Social Democrats, to the right while denying them a clearly separate ideological identity. A similar phenomenon is evident across Scandinavia – and to some degree, in Britain – where the left has lost control of the agenda and is failing to provide credible alternative answers. |
| Thulesen Dahl has now emerged as the kingmaker of Danish politics, with the balance of power teetering on a 90/89-seat split between the blocs of right and left. “This election campaign has shown that we are a party that the others just can’t avoid. We are a party to be taken seriously here in this country,” Thulesen Dahl declared on election night. | Thulesen Dahl has now emerged as the kingmaker of Danish politics, with the balance of power teetering on a 90/89-seat split between the blocs of right and left. “This election campaign has shown that we are a party that the others just can’t avoid. We are a party to be taken seriously here in this country,” Thulesen Dahl declared on election night. |
| The political establishment knows this is no idle boast. Some see him as Denmark’s nation-saving white knight – he belongs to the 17th-century chivalric Order of the Dannebrog. Others suspect a more destructive agenda. | The political establishment knows this is no idle boast. Some see him as Denmark’s nation-saving white knight – he belongs to the 17th-century chivalric Order of the Dannebrog. Others suspect a more destructive agenda. |
| In a country of 5.7 million people, of whom 9% were born abroad, immigration from within the EU and from further afield is an incendiary issue that has become mixed up with anti-Muslim, or anti-Islamic, sentiment. Denmark received almost 15,000 asylum seekers in 2014, more than double the number for 2013. Like other European countries, it is watching the unprecedented influx of migrants across the Mediterranean this year with trepidation. | In a country of 5.7 million people, of whom 9% were born abroad, immigration from within the EU and from further afield is an incendiary issue that has become mixed up with anti-Muslim, or anti-Islamic, sentiment. Denmark received almost 15,000 asylum seekers in 2014, more than double the number for 2013. Like other European countries, it is watching the unprecedented influx of migrants across the Mediterranean this year with trepidation. |
| In an interview in 2013 Thulesen Dahl said Denmark should accept more refugees from non-Muslim countries and fewer from Muslim countries, in effect saying there was no room for more Muslims. During the election campaign he was more circumspect. But it seems clear the DPP surge fed off fears about the “enemy within” symbolised by February’s deadly attacks in Copenhagen by a lone Islamist extremist. The incident was seen as an assault on a traditional Danish value, freedom of speech. | In an interview in 2013 Thulesen Dahl said Denmark should accept more refugees from non-Muslim countries and fewer from Muslim countries, in effect saying there was no room for more Muslims. During the election campaign he was more circumspect. But it seems clear the DPP surge fed off fears about the “enemy within” symbolised by February’s deadly attacks in Copenhagen by a lone Islamist extremist. The incident was seen as an assault on a traditional Danish value, freedom of speech. |
| Related: Copenhagen shootings: how the attacks unfolded | Related: Copenhagen shootings: how the attacks unfolded |
| In an echo of the British debate on radicalisation, the DPP has threatened to prosecute imams such as Abu Bilal Ismail, a preacher at the Grimhojvej mosque in Aarhus that has sent many young Muslims to Syria. | In an echo of the British debate on radicalisation, the DPP has threatened to prosecute imams such as Abu Bilal Ismail, a preacher at the Grimhojvej mosque in Aarhus that has sent many young Muslims to Syria. |
| Thulesen Dahl’s specific policies comprise cuts to immigration, withdrawal from the EU’s Schengen free-movement area and reinstating border controls with Germany and Sweden, opposition to further EU integration (including a possible British-style in/out referendum), mooted cuts in foreign aid, higher pensions for the less well-off and higher business taxes. | Thulesen Dahl’s specific policies comprise cuts to immigration, withdrawal from the EU’s Schengen free-movement area and reinstating border controls with Germany and Sweden, opposition to further EU integration (including a possible British-style in/out referendum), mooted cuts in foreign aid, higher pensions for the less well-off and higher business taxes. |
| Citing what it says is widespread concern about “benefits tourism” and criminal gangs infiltrating Denmark from eastern Europe, the DPP will side with David Cameron against Germany’s Angela Merkel and others in an attempt to curb free movement within the EU. | Citing what it says is widespread concern about “benefits tourism” and criminal gangs infiltrating Denmark from eastern Europe, the DPP will side with David Cameron against Germany’s Angela Merkel and others in an attempt to curb free movement within the EU. |
| “We want an EU where power is brought back to the member states and where the commission doesn’t rule,” Søren Espersen, the DPP’s foreign affairs spokesman, told the Guardian during the campaign. “That is of the utmost importance to the future of Europe, we believe. | |
| “We think David Cameron is speaking on behalf of many, many states that don’t want to see the continuation of this madness. What is going on in Britain is to the advantage of the whole community.” | |
| Related: Danish PM out to prove pollsters wrong as rightwingers play up election chances | Related: Danish PM out to prove pollsters wrong as rightwingers play up election chances |
| To maximise his chances of enacting his programme, Thulesen Dahl must decide whether or not to join a coalition led by Rasmussen’s Liberals. Most DPP supporters reportedly want him to sign up, but Thulesen Dahl is dithering, pointing to the period from 2001 to 2011 when his party exerted significant influence on a rightwing coalition on key issues that mattered to it, but stayed outside government. He is said to want to avoid the fate of Britain’s Lib Dems and Norway’s Progress party, which were tainted by time spent in office. | To maximise his chances of enacting his programme, Thulesen Dahl must decide whether or not to join a coalition led by Rasmussen’s Liberals. Most DPP supporters reportedly want him to sign up, but Thulesen Dahl is dithering, pointing to the period from 2001 to 2011 when his party exerted significant influence on a rightwing coalition on key issues that mattered to it, but stayed outside government. He is said to want to avoid the fate of Britain’s Lib Dems and Norway’s Progress party, which were tainted by time spent in office. |
| But any government led by Rasmussen and the Liberals would be fragile given the right’s one-seat majority in parliament and the fact that the Liberals came a poor third in the poll, losing a quarter of their seats. If Dahl is perceived to be undermining a weak new administration for his own ends, or failing to turn promises into reality, the populist tide that raised him high this week could turn and sink him. | But any government led by Rasmussen and the Liberals would be fragile given the right’s one-seat majority in parliament and the fact that the Liberals came a poor third in the poll, losing a quarter of their seats. If Dahl is perceived to be undermining a weak new administration for his own ends, or failing to turn promises into reality, the populist tide that raised him high this week could turn and sink him. |