Plan B Forum

The polls have opened in Sweden's general election - where an anti-immigration party is vying to make large gains.

The nationalist Sweden Democrats (SD), which polls suggest have 20% support, are tipped for second place.

Neither the governing Social Democrats nor the main centre-right party is likely to win a majority.

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has accused the SD of extremism and said that a vote for it was "dangerous".

Immigration has been a central issue of the campaign. The SD doubled its seats in the 2014 election and it is predicted to double them again in this election.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45461686

Sweden's "naive" approach to integrating asylum seekers has opened the door to the far-right, an outspoken lawmaker told AFP ahead of elections expected to see the country's once-marginal anti-immigration party make gains.

Amineh Kakabaveh is an Iranian Kurdish ex-peshmerga fighter who sought asylum herself in Sweden in the 1990s and has been a member of parliament since 2008. She has been a vocal critic of Sweden's handling of the 400,000 asylum seekers taken in since 2012, including 160,000 in 2015 alone, the highest number in Europe per capita.

Sweden is "increasingly divided", said the 40-year-old politician, whose views have earned her enemies among her own formerly-communist Left Party who accuse her of stigmatising immigrants. Yet Kakabaveh is ruthless in her criticism of Sweden's shortcomings on integrating immigrants, giving it a failing grade.

"We have been naive. We have not been brave. We had no plan," she said, adding that this has enabled a rise in "fundamentalism" in Sweden's suburbs that has fuelled the far-right.

"Sweden has been having integration problems for 20 years," Kakabaveh tells AFP in an interview just days before the election. "This is why the Sweden Democrats, a racist party, is now [poised to be] the second biggest party."

For Monica and Bengt Borg, a retired Swedish couple, Flen doesn't feel like Sweden anymore. As they sit on a bench on the town's main street, an Iraqi man nearby watches a Kurdish television program on his phone. Arabic pop music pulses from a girl's phone. A constant flow of Somalis, Ethiopians and Syrians pass by, the women in headscarves.

"We don't recognize our country as it is today," said Bengt Borg, 66. His wife, 64, says she no longer feels safe walking alone at night due to reports of rapes by immigrants. Both plan to join a growing number of Swedes voting for a nationalist and anti-immigrant party, the Sweden Democrats, in Sunday's general election.

The popularity of Italy’s hardline interior minister, Matteo Salvini, is growing as he taps into the emotions of a nation in despair and seizes on them as if he was still on the campaign trail.

Nowhere was this more evident than at the state funeral on Saturday for 19 of the 43 people killed in Genoa’s Morandi bridge collapse last Tuesday. Cheers and hugs greeted Salvini, also deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League, and his coalition partner, Luigi Di Maio, the leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), as they arrived at the ceremony.

In contrast, deep disdain for Italy’s previous government was reflected in the insults hurled at members of the centre-left Democratic party.

In what some describe as a watershed moment, many Italians are not only counting on a robust and swift response to the tragedy from their new leaders but are also depending on them to resolve chronic problems, from high unemployment to corruption, that have weighed the country down for decades.

More pertinently, some are looking to Salvini, a man admired among supporters for his consistency as much as he is despised by critics for his anti-immigration rhetoric, as their saviour.

Far-right demonstrators have held another night of anti-immigration protests in the German city of Chemnitz - following the fatal stabbing of a man for which two migrants have been arrested.

On Friday around two thousand people took to the streets - under the slogan "security for Chemnitz"

"We do not have a problem with foreigners if they integrate,” said one demonstrator. “So long as they work or want to work and are not imposing their culture on us. These are the basics. And many people are afraid because the security situation is getting worse and worse."

Some fear the “great peace” – the 70-plus years of co-operation and security in Western Europe – is now under threat.

The rise of the far-right has co­incided with a decline of the centre-left. Of the 28 EU states, only six – Spain, Portugal, Malta, Greece, Sweden and Slovakia – have left-wing governments.

The right’s tough line on migration has played well with some of the left’s traditional supporters.

Prof Matthew Goodwin, of Kent University, says: “We have centre- left parties struggling with a new agenda of terrorism, immigration and the refugee crisis.”

There are fears for the future of the EU. A poll for Reuters suggests far-right parties could increase their seats in the European Parliament from 80 to 122 next year.

Prof Goodwin says: “The issue of the refugee crisis is massive for the EU. If they cannot be seen to respond effectively to that issue and they cannot come up with a unified plan, that is going to cause the EU major, major problems.”

• Kakabaveh is ruthless in her criticism of Sweden's shortcomings on integrating immigrants, giving it a failing grade.
  
  "We have been naive. We have not been brave. We had no plan," she said,

Guinevere wrote:How very Trumpian of you. “Refuse to integrate” is total dog-whistle code for “don’t look and sound like us.”

datsunaholic wrote:"Failure to integrate". No, it's a failure of people to accept or even tolerate cultural differences. It's very prevalent anywhere that is/was historically mono-cultural.

The US was a prime example- even white people from the Old World coming in- unless you gave up your Old World traditions and heritage, you weren't accepted into society. .

rubato wrote:The rise of the fascist right in Sweden, Greece and elsewhere is driven by the effects of austerity policies.

All white Americans are immigrants.

It has been proven adequately that hatred is distributed through all cultures.

Only a naive racist does not know this.

All white Americans are immigrants.