Why Denmark’s left (not the far right) got tough on immigration

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

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

In Denmark – and in Spain, which is tackling the difficulty in a really totally different however no much less radical method 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 dwell in actually unsettling occasions. As battle rages in Ukraine, Russia is waging hybrid warfare, resembling cyber assaults throughout a lot of the continent. Governments discuss spending extra on defence, whereas most European economies are spluttering. Voters fear about the price of dwelling 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 Warfare Two, growing additional – and quickly – in current many years. The proportion of Danish residents who’re immigrants, or who’ve two immigrant dad and mom, has elevated greater than fivefold since 1985, based on the Migration Coverage Institute (MPI).

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

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

Denmark got here underneath 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 direction of their keep in Denmark.

The Danish immigration minister put up a photograph of herself on Fb having a cake embellished with the quantity 50 and a Danish flag to have a good time 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 concerning the results of the speedy inflow of migrants.

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

At the moment Denmark’s has turn 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 companion international locations, 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 but it surely’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 momentary by legislation, no matter their want for defense.

However lots of Denmark’s harsh measures appeared focused as a lot at making headlines, as taking motion. The Danish authorities deliberately created a “hostile setting” 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 commercials in Lebanese newspapers on the top of the migrant disaster, for instance, warning how robust Danish migration insurance policies have been.

“The objective has been to scale back all incentives to come back 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 specific discuss a zero asylum seekers coverage.

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

Then immediately the response was, “No. Our first objective is to supply responsibly for Danish folks.”

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, in the course of the migrant disaster.

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

By 2015 the anti-migration Danish Individuals’s Celebration was the second greatest energy in Denmark’s parliament. However on the identical time, the Social Democrats – underneath new chief Mette Frederiksen – determined to combat again, making a transparent, public break with the get together’s previous status of openness to migration.

“My get together ought to have listened,” Frederiksen stated.

Underneath her management, the get together tacked in direction of what’s usually seen because the political “far proper” when it comes to migration and made hardline DPP-associated asylum insurance policies, their very own. However additionally they doubled down on points extra historically related to the left: public companies.

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

That’s how her get together 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 get together’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 yr’s election to the European Parliament, the populist nationalist Danish Individuals’s Celebration scrambled to carry on to a single seat.

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

Sir Keir Starmer not too long ago got here underneath hearth when, throughout a speech on immigration, he spoke of the hazard of his nation changing into ‘an island of strangers’.

On the identical 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 underneath assault for beneficiant shadow price range proposals that critics say do not add up.

In France, centrist Emmanuel Macron has sounded more and more hardline on immigration in recent times, 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 specifically, Danish Social Democrat – robust immigration insurance policies be deemed a hit?

The reply relies on which standards you utilize to evaluate them.

Asylum declare functions are actually down in Denmark, in stark distinction to a lot of the remainder of Europe. The quantity, as of Might 2025, is the bottom in 40 years, based on immigration.dk, an internet data website for refugees in Denmark.

However Nordic Denmark is actually not what’s seen as a frontline state – like Italy – the place folks smugglers’ boats steadily 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 status for respecting worldwide humanitarian legislation and the rights of asylum-seekers. Michelle Tempo of Chatham Home says it has turn into exhausting to guard refugees in Denmark, the place “the authorized goalposts preserve shifting.”

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 unload or demolish house blocks in troubled areas the place no less than half of residents have a “non-Western” background.

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

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

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

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

Earlier than Germany’s common election this yr, then centre-left Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, pledged to tighten asylum laws, together with lowering 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 prison data.

Contesting worldwide legal guidelines on asylum is a development Denmark is establishing at a extra European stage, 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 international locations 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 employees via authorized channels. However not sufficient, contemplating the quickly getting older 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 street. Its Social Democrat prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, loves declaring the Spanish financial system was the quickest rising amongst wealthy nations final yr.

Its 3.2% GDP progress was greater than America’s, 3 times the UK’s and 4 occasions the EU common.

Sanchez needs to legalise almost 1,000,000 migrants, already working in Spain however presently with out authorized papers. That further tax income plus the much-needed further employees 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 start charges within the EU. Spanish society is getting previous, quick.

“Virtually half of our cities are liable to depopulation,” he stated in autumn 2024. “We now have aged individuals who want a caregiver, firms on the lookout for programmers, technicians and bricklayers… The important thing to migration is in managing it nicely.”

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

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

The Sanchez authorities is organising what Ms Tempo calls a “nationwide dialogue”, involving NGOs and personal enterprise. The goal is to stability plugging labour market gaps with avoiding strains on public companies, by utilizing further tax income from new migrant employees, to construct housing and further school rooms, for instance.

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

“Profitable” migration coverage relies on 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 regarded as the commonest method migrants enter and keep in Europe with out authorized papers.

However current UK governments have targeted on excessive profile points like folks 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 employees into the UK.

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

So, does the ‘excellent’ migration plan exist, that balances voter issues, 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 commonly extra subtle than their politicians.

Most favor a stability, he says: migration limits to guard themselves and their households, however as soon as they really feel that is in place, additionally they favour honest laws to guard refugees and international employees.

High image credit score: SOPA Photos through Getty

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