How left-wing Denmark clamped down hard on immigration and won over working class voters
IT is one of the most liberal nations on Earth, with a left-wing govern- ment and generous welfare handouts.
Yet Denmark’s ruling Social Democrats party has clamped down hard on immigration to woo working-class voters.
Immigration minister Kaare Dybvad Bek insisted: “If you want to be a party of the working class and middle class, you have to ensure that migration has a manageable level.”
And as the immigration row rages across Britain, it is a stark warning to Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour frontbench, who are plotting to block Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan next week.
Britain’s most senior judges have already ruled it is not a safe third nation to deport migrants to.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s party came to power in Denmark in 2019 vowing a clampdown on immigration.
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Successful asylum bids had almost halved by her second year in office, from 85 per cent in 2015 to 44 per cent in 2020.
This year it was announced the Scandinavian country is 19th among EU nations in terms of the number of asylum seekers per capita — down from 5th place in 2014, when 14,792 people requested sanctuary there.
‘Valuables confiscated’
The following year the figure shot up to 21,316, yet in 2022 there were just 4,597 asylum seekers in Denmark, according to Statista.
So when Social Democrat MP Rasmus Stoklund next goes to the polls, he will be able to give voters in Denmark a clear message on immigration.
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He told The Sun on Sunday: “I don’t think it’s surprising that a left-wing party is tough on immigration.
“The part of society that bears the brunt of unchecked migration is the working-class population that we should be representing.
“The people most affected by open borders are those that don’t have economic resources.
“It is their children who have to go to schools that experience cultural clashes.
"It is those people who have to experience the criminality and social problems that follow.
“The more privileged people in society will only meet migrants if they are the children of diplomats, so for them the issue is not so clear.
“To me, it’s obvious that if you want to represent all parts of the population, then you can’t close your eyes to the issues that unchecked migration will create.”
UK Labour leader Sir Keir may do well to pay attention when he formulates his immigration policy ahead of Britain going to the polls next year.
For while his shadow ministers are forced to admit that the numbers under Labour will, at best, be reduced to “a couple of hundred thousand a year”, Rasmus’s party has set a much more ambitious target — ZERO.
The UK Labour leader has so far devoted most of his energy to slamming the Tories’ failure to stem the flow.
With net migration hitting a record of some 700,000 this year, he has offered little alternative.
And Sir Keir has pledged to reverse the Government’s policy to send illegal migrants to Rwanda.
In contrast, the hardline policy of the Social Democrats saw support for right-wing parties, including the Danish People’s Party, collapse in 2019, slumping from 21 per cent to 8.7 per cent between the two polls.
The following year, asylum applications fell to their lowest level since 1998, with just 1,515 people applying for sanctuary in the high-tax Scandinavian nation.
Then, in 2021, PM Frederiksen stood before MPs at the Folketing, Denmark’s parliament, and insisted that was only the start.
“We cannot promise zero asylum seekers, but we can set up that vision, as we did before the elections,” she said.
“We want a new asylum system and we will do what we can to introduce it.”
Denmark’s tough approach can be traced back to previous Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who led the centre right Venstre party to victory in the 2015 election.
One of his controversial laws demanded that asylum seekers be searched on entry, with valuables worth more than £1,000 confiscated to pay for their accommodation.
The policy was compared to the way Jewish people were treated by Nazi Germany during the holocaust.
Meanwhile, in 2022, 16,800 refugees arrived in neighbouring Sweden and migration has been blamed for the creation of urban ghettos and bloody gang violence.
Some 20 per cent of the population was born overseas, while in Denmark it is eight per cent.
Another cautionary tale has been provided by Britain, where 100,000 migrants have arrived illegally in small boats since 2018.
Across the EU, more than 330,000 asylum applications were filed in the first four months of 2023 alone.
Radical new proposals by Denmark’s Social Democrats have included a troubled bid to send some of its 30,000 Syrian refugees home, with MPs insisting the previously war-torn nation in the Middle East is safe.
A specialist department has been created to process asylum claims in the Nordic nation.
People claiming to be refugees are put not in a hotel, but a migrant centre, while their applications are considered.
Those who have their cases rejected are swiftly sent home, while the lucky ones approved can stay on a temporary basis.
Migrants are no longer given permits to stay permanently in Denmark, as was the case in the past, and the path to citizenship has effectively been closed for most.
The fewer than 1,000 failed asylum seekers who have used court appeals to prevent being ejected face probation-like measures which force them to check in with the authorities three times a day.
‘Hard being a foreigner’
Like the Tory Government here, Denmark also planned to create a processing centre for asylum seekers in Rwanda, although its efforts have similarly been thwarted by red tape.
Another radical scheme is the Danish policy of “enforced gentrification”.
A list of 19 vulnerable areas has been published, where more than half the population has been labelled “non-Western”, and there has been an accompanying rise in social problems.
Children in these so-called ghettos are made to attend at least 25 hours of pre-school for lessons in Danish culture.
Parents who don’t comply can have their benefits cut and those convicted of crimes in these areas face stiffer sentences.
Huge housing estates have also been demolished in a bid to force non-Westerners to disperse.
The Sun on Sunday visited the Vejleaparken estate outside the capital Copenhagen, where optician Kenn Magnussen explained why Danes are sensitive about immigration.
The 57-year-old said: “In Denmark, we believe in community. If immigrants want to integrate, they can.
"If they don’t, that is a problem. For instance, some migrants come from countries where women don’t work traditionally. But in Denmark, everyone works.
"We only have 20,000 unemployed out of a population of 5.8million. It’s because we all want to do the right thing. That is the Danish way.”
The Mjolnerparken district of Copenhagen was also put on the vulnerable list for a time due to the high number of Middle Eastern migrants.
Yet even there we found people support the tough stance on asylum seekers.
Student Serhat, 26, who didn’t want to give his last name, was born in Denmark after his parents moved from Turkey.
While selling soup with his friend Neel Heintze, 25, he explained why the Social Democrats have the right policy.
He said: “Danish culture is strong and they want to keep it that way, so it’s right that they tell people to integrate.
“The big mistake they made was 40 years ago, when they let so many immigrants move to the same area. Those areas became poor and that led to crime.
“The government should do more for immigrants because it’s hard being a foreigner in Denmark.
“At the same time, this is a small country, and we can’t welcome everyone.
"We should focus on helping the people already here.”
A tale of two deportations
THE Danes appear to have more success than the UK with the European Court of Human rights in ejecting criminals to another country, as shown here.
DENMARK: Drug dealer forced back to Turkey
THE Danish government was backed in its bid to deport a drug dealer by the European Court of Human Rights.
Strasbourg judges ruled the man, 30, could be sent to Turkey after his conviction.
He denied he could speak Turkish and said he had only visited the country once.
The drug dealer was of Turkish descent but had lived in Denmark all his life with his parents and three siblings.
ECHR judges said the deportation was not a breach of his human rights.
UK: Rapist can stay after attack on girl of 13
A NIGERIAN teen who raped a girl of 13 was allowed to remain in the UK after ECHR judges ruled he had developed a “life” here.
Akindoyin Akinshipe arrived here aged 13 in 2000 to join his mother, a nurse.
Two years later he was jailed for four years for the attack.
In a decision in 2011 the CHRG noted his “solidity of social, cultural and family ties” here, although he did not have a wife or children.
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Akinshipe had been in the country three years when he first faced removal but legally challenged the order over eight years.
Accepting that “very serious violent offences can justify expulsion”, the ECHR ruled that deporting him would breach his right to a private life.