The post you are reporting:
Courtesy of the Times.
A nationalist anti-immigration party with its roots in the white supremacy movement has surged into the lead in the Swedish election campaign in a backlash against the country’s liberal asylum and migration policies. The Sweden Democrats have become a focus for anger about gang crime in city centre immigrant communities and the influx of asylum seekers in 2015-16. The party has been modernised by its youthful leader Jimmie Akesson to appeal to a wider cross section of voters with policies which include a referendum on EU membership.
The party is now on the verge of causing an upset in Swedish politics after its support was put at 25.6 per cent in the latest opinion poll, ahead of 21.2 per cent for the Social Democrats — the centre-left party which has received the biggest vote at every election for a century. Traditional centre-left and centre-right parties have tried to ignore the Sweden Democrats for years but the mainstream conservative Moderate party has said it could work with it on issues such as immigration. That means Mr Akesson, 39, is set to become the kingmaker after the September 9 election and could be instrumental in Its anti-immigration message found a wider audience after Sweden took in 163,000 asylum seekers in 2015, more than any other European country per capita. Sweden’s foreign-born population has risen from 11 to 18 per cent in under two decades.
Mr Akesson blames liberal immigration policies for the rise in gang violence in Stockholm, Malmo and Gothenburg. In 2011 only 17 people were killed by firearms in Sweden but in 2017 there were more than 300 shootings, leaving 41 dead and over 100 injured. “We are prepared to bring down any government we think is not leading Sweden in the right direction,” Mr Akesson said. His policies include funding migrants to return to their homeland and severely restricting new arrivals. He is also determined to push for “Swexit”, saying that the EU is a “large web of corruption where no one has control over anything”.ousting the current Social Democrat-Green administration in favour of a centre-right coalition. “The Sweden Democrats’ voters are very unhappy with Swedish immigration policy and do not trust politicians. Otherwise they are normal Swedes with a job and families,” said Anders Sannerstedt from Lund University. Much of the success of the Sweden Democrats is credited to Mr Akesson, who became leader in 2005 and set about transforming its image.