Just how 'far right' are the Sweden Democrats?

Beskrivelse

Indeed, SD’s roots have played a significant part in colouring how they are labeled today, according to Ian Manners, a politics professor at the University of Copenhagen who specializes in European politics.

“Löfven was right in that SD clearly have their roots in Nazi and neo-Nazi movements in the 1980s, which has been sustained through the 1990s and 2000s,” he told The Local.

One way of trying to assess how appropriate any of the labels for SD are is to use a comparative approach, looking at the party from a broader perspective than just within Sweden.

That’s a method University of Copenhagen professor Manners thinks is a fair one, but again, it’s not simple.

“One way to try and unpack this is that in the USA and the UK, the term ‘far right’ is regularly used to describe them. The Independent, Guardian, New York Times and Washington Post would all use that term,” he said.

“Another is to compare their stance with that of other right of centre parties across Europe. Broadly speaking they would still remain far right in one sense because they haven’t made an attempt to enter government yet, and that moment of entering government does have a moderating effect. So from a comparative perspective, they’re still far right.”

A third option is to compare SD to other parties in Europe by looking at European Parliament groups.

“There’s a right of centre party grouping in the European Parliament which doesn’t advocate leaving the EU, and to the right of them is the European Freedom and Direct Democracy group where the Sweden Democrats sit,” Manners explained.

“That’s definitely far right, in that they are anti-EU, but also anti-immigrant. They’re not however extreme right, as there’s a group further to the right of them still.”