Meet
Denmark’s new anti-Islam, anti-immigration, anti-tax party
A
new party is overtaking Denmark’s far-right party on the further
right.
By VAS
PANAGIOTOPOULOS 2/6/17, 4:32 AM CET
COPENHAGEN — For
more than two decades, the Danish People’s Party ran on an
unapologetically anti-immigration, populist platform, pushing Danish
politics to the right by rejecting multiculturalism and opposing the
transfer of sovereignty to Brussels.
Today, the DPP faces
its own challenge from the right.
Nye Borgerlige, or
“The New Right,” led by 41-year-old Pernille Vermund, pursues a
libertarian economic agenda and wants even stricter controls on
migrants in a country that already has some of the most stringent
immigration laws in Western Europe.
Vermund, a trained
architect, has called for a ban on headscarves in schools and public
institutions. Her party wants asylum to be given only to refugees
coming directly from the U.N. refugee agency’s resettlement scheme
and those with “a job in hand,” and supports limiting Danish
citizenship to people who “contribute positively” to society.
“Those who don’t
have the ability to provide for themselves, we have to ask them to
find another place to stay,” Vermund said.
“When you advance
as powerfully as we do, there will always be people who are against
you” — Pernille Vermund
Fawaz Taha Zatto, a
teacher who came from the Syrian city of Ras al-Ayn two years ago, is
“frustrated and disappointed” with Nye Borgerlige’s
anti-immigration rhetoric. “The positive contribution in a society
depends on feeling welcomed by the community and the authorities,”
he said.
Vermund’s party
wants to withdraw not only from the European Union but also from the
Refugee Convention and the U.N. convention on statelessness, and it
wants to strengthen ties with countries such as Norway and the U.K.
in order to “safeguard free trade” while “getting rid of the
EU.”
After the Brexit
referendum, Vermund got in touch with then-UKIP leader Nigel Farage,
but they “didn’t continue the communication,” she said.
In her office in the
upscale Copenhagen neighborhood of Christianshavn, Vermund chose her
words carefully. She didn’t want to be misunderstood. “When you
advance as powerfully as we do, there will always be people who are
against you,” she said, with a smile.
Northern
conservative
Vermund, originally
from Snekkersten, a southern suburb of Helsingør 45 kilometers north
of Copenhagen, studied architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of
Fine Arts. In 2009, she was elected to the Helsingør City Council
for the Conservative People’s Party but withdrew from politics in
2011 in order to get “the family back on its feet” after a
divorce. She has three sons between the ages of 6 and 12.
Running her own
business, going through a divorce and working in politics put a
strain on her personal finances: It’s only been four months since
Vermund took a last part-time job as a waitress, according to a
recent report in Danish media.
“It costs a lot,
on different levels, to start a party from scratch,” she said. For
better or worse, she added, she “can no longer be neutral and
private” walking down the street.
“So far,” she
said, “I haven’t experienced threats or harassment.”
Vermund founded Nye
Borgerlige in October 2015 with Peter Seier Christensen, a chemical
engineer. The pair left the Conservative People’s Party following
Vermund’s unsuccessful bid to become an MP in the general election
in June that year.
“We are
conservative, Peter and I. The true conservatives,” Vermund said.
“We think that the party that currently sits in the Danish
parliament is not truly conservative anymore.”
Mostly, the pair
clashed with the party over Denmark’s EU membership. Things came to
a head when the party supported participation in Europe’s police
agency, Europol, which Vermund vehemently opposed.
“I was told that,
if I wanted to continue, I had to either be quiet about my opinion —
or change it,” Vermund said. “None of the existing right-wing
parties in Denmark are against the EU. Some of them are critical, but
none of them are critical enough to want to leave.”
A few months later,
the Danes voted to leave Europol.
Nye Borgerlige,
which counts roughly 3,000 members, has gathered the required minimum
of 20,109 signatures to run for parliament in the next election,
scheduled for 2019. Polls put the party between 2.6 percent and 4.5
percent — above the 2 percent threshold required to enter the
Danish parliament.
Despite its
relatively modest support, Nye Borgerlige has the potential to
significantly influence Danish politics, given the country’s system
of proportional representation, which means the support of smaller
parties is often essential to the formation of coalition governments.
And it’s not
uncommon in Denmark’s political scene for new parties to quickly
gain traction. Liberal Alliance, a member of the current government,
was founded in 2007.
According to a
Gallup analysis conducted last November, Nye Borgerlige voters are
former supporters of the Danish People’s Party.
The DPP, which
supports Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s minority government, has watered
down its criticism of the EU and compromised with the government on
the refugee issue.
“I definitely
think that DPP can feel, to a certain degree, pressure from Nye
Borgerlige,” said Thomas Larsen, a political commentator with the
Berlingske newspaper.
If elections were
held today, the DPP parliamentary group would be cut down from 37 to
24 members. A recent scandal over misuse of EU funds has been
partially responsible for the decline, but a portion of the Danish
electorate has turned to Nye Borgerlige to take a tougher stance on
immigration. “They are extremely frustrated by the flow of
refugees,” said Larsen.
Nye Borgerlige,
which has a more libertarian economic outlook than the DPP, is
determined to fill the gap. Vermund said she wants “to completely
remove corporation tax” — an unconventional position in a welfare
state like Denmark.
The party’s future
also depends on the Social Democrats, the party with the most MPs in
the Danish parliament and which has also taken a stricter stance on
immigration. In August, the party suggested immigrants should be
given 200,000 DKK (€26,900) to “go home.”
Vermund’s party
could shift the political debate even further to the right and force
more mainstream parties to support anti-immigration policies.
According to Larsen, the DPP is already trying to toughen its
anti-immigration rhetoric in anticipation. “They are trying to send
a message to both the government and the public that they want to
strengthen their refugee policies, even more,” he said.
The
party’s biggest challenges will be to “make sure that everybody
in Denmark knows who we are and what we stand for” —
Pernille Vermund
Meanwhile, Nye
Borgerlige’s positions on other issues are still a mystery. In an
interview with Danish television in September, Vermund appeared
unprepared for questions regarding pensions, public transport and
health care.
“She’s not a
very experienced politician,” said Larsen. “I don’t think that
Pernille Vermund has been able to set a new agenda.”
Vermund is
unconcerned by the criticism, pointing out that her party quickly
gathered the 20,000 signatures it needed. “Much faster than any
other political party has done before,” she said.
Nye Borgerlige’s
first real test will be local elections in November. The party is
already represented in nine city councils and one regional council
and counts branches in 51 cities around the country, according to
Vermund.
“We’re
definitely planning to have a candidate in all local councils,” she
says. The party’s biggest challenges, she said, will be to “make
sure that everybody in Denmark knows who we are and what we stand
for.”
Vas Panagiotopoulos
is a freelance journalist. He tweets @vas_ldn.
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