Why Denmark’s left (not the far proper) bought robust on immigration

Suppose, Denmark. Photographs of glossy, impossibly stylish Copenhagen, the capital, may spring to thoughts. In addition to a way of a liberal, open society. That’s the Scandinavian cliché.

However in terms of migration, Denmark has taken a dramatically totally different flip. The nation is now “a pioneer in restrictive migration insurance policies” in Europe, in keeping with Marie Sandberg, Director of the Centre for Superior Migration Research (AMIS) on the College of Copenhagen – each in terms of asylum-seekers and financial migrants trying to work in Denmark.

Much more stunning, maybe, is who’s behind this drive. It is typically assumed ‘far proper’ politicians are gaining in power throughout Europe on the again of migration fears, however that is removed from the complete image.

In Denmark – and in Spain, which is tackling the difficulty in a really totally different however no much less radical manner by pushing for extra, not much less immigration – the politicians taking the migration bull by the horns, now come from the centre left of politics.

How come? And might the remainder of Europe – together with the UK’s Labour authorities – be taught from them?

Migration is a high voter precedence, proper throughout Europe. We reside in actually unsettling instances. As conflict rages in Ukraine, Russia is waging hybrid warfare, similar to cyber assaults throughout a lot of the continent. Governments speak about spending extra on defence, whereas most European economies are spluttering. Voters fear about the price of residing and into this maelstrom of anxieties comes concern about migration.

However in Denmark, the difficulty has run deeper, and for longer.

Immigration started to develop apace following World Battle Two, growing additional – and quickly – in current a long time. The proportion of Danish residents who’re immigrants, or who’ve two immigrant mother and father, has elevated greater than fivefold since 1985, in keeping with the Migration Coverage Institute (MPI).

A turning level was ten years in the past, through the 2015 European migration and refugee disaster, when properly over 1,000,000 migrants got here to Europe, largely heading to the wealthier north, to nations like Denmark, Sweden and Germany.

Slogans like “Danskerne Først” (Danes First) resonated with the voters. Once I interviewed supporters of the hard-right nationalist, anti-immigration, Danish Folks’s Celebration (DPP) that 12 months they instructed me, “We do not see ourselves as racists however we do really feel we’re dropping our nation.”

Denmark got here beneath obtrusive worldwide consideration for its hardline refugee stance, after it allowed the authorities to confiscate asylum seekers’ jewelry and different valuables, saying this was to pay in the direction of their keep in Denmark.

The Danish immigration minister put up a photograph of herself on Fb having a cake adorned with the quantity 50 and a Danish flag to have fun passing her fiftieth modification to tighten immigration controls.

And Danish legislation has solely tightened additional since then.

Mayors from cities outdoors Copenhagen had lengthy been sounding the alarm in regards to the results of the speedy inflow of migrants.

Migrant staff and their households had tended to maneuver simply outdoors the capital, to keep away from excessive residing prices. Denmark’s well-known welfare system was perceived to be beneath pressure. Toddler faculties have been mentioned to be full of youngsters who did not converse Danish. Some unemployed migrants reportedly obtained resettlement funds that made their welfare advantages bigger than these of unemployed Danes, and authorities statistics prompt immigrants have been committing extra crimes than others. Native resentment was rising, mayors warned.

At present Denmark’s has develop into one of many loudest voices in Europe calling for asylum seekers and different migrants turning up with out authorized papers to be processed outdoors the continent.

The nation had first checked out detaining migrants with out papers on a Danish island that used to deal with a centre for contagious animals. That plan was shelved.

Then Copenhagen handed a legislation in 2021 permitting asylum claims to be processed and refugees to be resettled in associate nations, like Rwanda. The UK’s former Conservative authorities tried a not dissimilar plan that was later annulled.

Copenhagen’s Kigali plan hasn’t progressed a lot both however it’s tightened guidelines on household reunions, which not way back, was seen as a refugee’s proper. It has additionally made all refugees’ keep in Denmark non permanent by legislation, no matter their want for defense.

However a lot of Denmark’s harsh measures appeared focused as a lot at making headlines, as taking motion. The Danish authorities deliberately created a “hostile atmosphere” for migrants”, says Alberto Horst Neidhardt, senior analyst on the European Coverage Centre.

And Denmark has been eager for the phrase to unfold.

It put ads in Lebanese newspapers on the top of the migrant disaster, for instance, warning how robust Danish migration insurance policies have been.

“The aim has been to scale back all incentives to return to Denmark,” says ⁠Susi Dennison, senior coverage fellow on the European Council on International Relations.

“The Danes have gone additional than most European governments,” she explains. Not simply honing in on politically delicate points like crime and entry to advantages however with express speak about a zero asylum seekers coverage.

And but “earlier than the 2015 refugee disaster, there was a stereotype of Nordic nations being very internationalist… and having a welcoming tradition for asylum seekers,” says Ms Dennison.

Then abruptly the response was, “No. Our first aim is to supply responsibly for Danish individuals.”

The turning-point was, she argues, additionally triggered by Denmark’s neighbour, Germany, permitting 1,000,000 refugees and others to remain within the nation, through the migrant disaster.

“That was a political alternative that had repercussions throughout Europe.”

By 2015 the anti-migration Danish Folks’s Celebration was the second greatest energy in Denmark’s parliament. However on the similar time, the Social Democrats – beneath new chief Mette Frederiksen – determined to combat again, making a transparent, public break with the occasion’s previous repute of openness to migration.

“My occasion ought to have listened,” Frederiksen mentioned.

Below her management, the occasion tacked in the direction of what’s typically seen because the political “far proper” by way of migration and made hardline DPP-associated asylum insurance policies, their very own. However in addition they doubled down on points extra historically related to the left: public providers.

Danes pay the very best tax charges in Europe throughout all family sorts. They anticipate high notch public providers in return. Frederiksen argued that migration ranges threatened social cohesion and social welfare, with the poorest Danes dropping out essentially the most.

That’s how her occasion justify their robust migration guidelines.

Frederiksen’s critics see her ‘rightwards swing’ as a cynical ploy to get into, after which keep in, energy. She insists her occasion’s convictions are honest. Regardless of the case, it labored in successful votes.

Federiksen has been Denmark’s prime minister since 2019, and in final 12 months’s election to the European Parliament, the populist nationalist Danish Folks’s Celebration scrambled to carry on to a single seat.

The political labels of previous are blurring. It isn’t simply Denmark. Throughout Europe, events of the centre – proper and left – are more and more utilizing language historically related to the “far proper” in terms of migration to claw again, or maintain on to votes.

Sir Keir Starmer lately got here beneath hearth when, throughout a speech on immigration, he spoke of the hazard of his nation changing into ‘an island of strangers’.

On the similar time in Europe, right-wing events are adopting social insurance policies historically linked to the left to broaden their enchantment.

Within the UK, the chief of the anti-migration, opposition Reform Celebration Nigel Farage has been beneath assault for beneficiant shadow finances proposals that critics say do not add up.

In France, centrist Emmanuel Macron has sounded more and more hardline on immigration lately, whereas his political nemesis the Nationwide Rally Celebration chief Marine Le Pen has been closely mixing social welfare insurance policies into her nationalist agenda to draw extra mainstream voters.

However can Danish – and particularly, Danish Social Democrat – robust immigration insurance policies be deemed successful?

The reply depends upon which standards you utilize to guage them.

Asylum declare functions are definitely down in Denmark, in stark distinction to a lot of the remainder of Europe. The quantity, as of Could 2025, is the bottom in 40 years, in keeping with immigration.dk, an internet data web site for refugees in Denmark.

However Nordic Denmark is definitely not what’s seen as a frontline state – like Italy – the place individuals smugglers’ boats ceaselessly wash up alongside its shores.

“Frederiksen is in a beneficial geographical place,” argues Europe professor, Timothy Garton Ash, from Oxford College. However he additionally praises Denmark’s prime minister for addressing the issue of migration, with out adopting “hysterical rhetoric”.

However others say new laws has broken Denmark’s repute for respecting worldwide humanitarian legislation and the rights of asylum-seekers. Michelle Tempo of Chatham Home says it has develop into arduous to guard refugees in Denmark, the place “the authorized goalposts maintain transferring.”

Danish residents with a migrant background have additionally been made to really feel like outsiders, she notes.

She cites the Social Democrats’ “parallel societies” legislation, which permits the state to dump or demolish house blocks in troubled areas the place at the very least half of residents have a “non-Western” background.

The Social Democrats say the legislation is geared toward bettering integration however Ms Tempo insists it’s alienating. The youngsters of immigrants are instructed they don’t seem to be Danish or a “pure Dane,” she argues.

In February this 12 months, a senior advisor to the EU’s high courtroom described the non-Western provision of the Danish legislation as discriminatory on the idea of ethnic origin.

Whereas as soon as numerous European leaders dismissed Denmark’s Social Democrats as changing into far proper, now “the Danish place has develop into the brand new regular – it was the top of the curve,” says Alberto Horst Neidhardt.

“What’s thought-about ‘good’ migration insurance policies nowadays has moved to the precise, even for centre left governments, just like the UK.”

Earlier than Germany’s basic election this 12 months, then centre-left Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, pledged to tighten asylum rules, together with decreasing household reunification.

And earlier this month, Frederiksen teamed up with eight different European leaders – not together with the UK – to name for a reinterpretation of the European Conference on Human Rights, whose tight constraints, they declare, stop them from expelling international nationals with legal information.

Contesting worldwide legal guidelines on asylum is a development Denmark is establishing at a extra European degree, says Sarah Wolff, Professor of Worldwide Research and International Politics at Leiden College.

“With the subject of migration now politicised, you more and more see supposedly liberal nations which might be signatories to worldwide conventions, like human rights legislation, coming again on these conventions as a result of the laws not suits the political agenda of the second,” says Ms Wolff.

Regardless of the restrictive migrant laws, Denmark has continued to confess migrant staff by authorized channels. However not sufficient, contemplating the quickly growing old inhabitants, say critics like Michelle Tempo.

She predicts Denmark will face a critical labour scarcity sooner or later.

Spain’s centre-left authorities, in the meantime, is taking a really totally different highway. Its Social Democrat prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, loves stating the Spanish financial system was the quickest rising amongst wealthy nations final 12 months.

Its 3.2% GDP progress was greater than America’s, thrice the UK’s and 4 instances the EU common.

Sanchez needs to legalise practically 1,000,000 migrants, already working in Spain however at the moment with out authorized papers. That additional tax income plus the much-needed additional staff to plug gaps within the labour market will preserve financial progress and guarantee future pension funds are lined, he says.

Spain has one of many lowest beginning charges within the EU. Spanish society is getting previous, quick.

“Virtually half of our cities are prone to depopulation,” he mentioned in autumn 2024. “We now have aged individuals who want a caregiver, corporations in search of programmers, technicians and bricklayers… The important thing to migration is in managing it properly.”

Critics accuse Sanchez of encouraging unlawful migration to Spain, and query the nation’s document of integrating migrants. Opinion polls present that Sanchez is taking a bet: 57% of Spaniards say there are already too many migrants within the nation, in keeping with public pollster 40dB.

In lower than 30 years, the variety of foreign-born inhabitants in Spain has jumped virtually 9 fold from 1.6% to 14% of the inhabitants. However to date, migration considerations have not translated into widespread assist for the immigration sceptic nationalist Vox occasion.

The Sanchez authorities is organising what Ms Tempo calls a “nationwide dialogue”, involving NGOs and personal enterprise. The goal is to steadiness plugging labour market gaps with avoiding strains on public providers, through the use of additional tax income from new migrant staff, to construct housing and additional school rooms, for instance.

Proper now the plan is aspirational. It is too early to guage, if profitable, or not.

“Profitable” migration coverage depends upon what governments, no matter their political stripe, set as their precedence, says Ms Dennison.

In Denmark, the primary precedence is preserving the Danish social system. Italy prioritises offshoring the processing of migrants. Whereas Hungary’s prime minister Victor Orban needs strict migrant limits to guard Europe’s “Christian roots”, he claims.

Overstaying visas is considered the most typical manner migrants enter and keep in Europe with out authorized papers.

However current UK governments have centered on excessive profile points like individuals smugglers’ boats crossing the Channel.

Ms Dennison thinks that is a tactical transfer. It is taking goal at seen challenges, to “neutralise public anger” she says, within the hope most voters will then assist providing asylum to those that want it, and permit some international staff into the UK.

It could be arduous for Starmer to pursue the Denmark method, she provides. After taking up from earlier Conservative governments, he made a degree of recommitting the UK to worldwide establishments and worldwide legislation.

So, does the ‘superb’ migration plan exist, that balances voter considerations, financial wants and humanitarian values?

Martin Ruhs, deputy director of the Migration Coverage Centre, spends a number of time asking this query to voters throughout the UK and the remainder of Europe, and thinks the general public is usually extra refined than their politicians.

Most choose a steadiness, he says: migration limits to guard themselves and their households, however as soon as they really feel that is in place, in addition they favour truthful laws to guard refugees and international staff.

High image credit score: SOPA Photographs by way of Getty

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