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PM: ‘I am ready to listen to all suggestions’

Stefan Löfven gave an olive branch to leaders of the opposition in a heated parliament debate on Wednesday which focused mainly on the escalating refugee crisis.

Published: 14 October 2015 12:02 CEST
PM: 'I am ready to listen to all suggestions'
Stefan Löfven and Anna Kinberg Batra in Wednesday's debate. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

The Prime Minister, who heads the ruling centre-left Social Democrats-Green coalition, said his government would be meeting with opposition leaders to discuss the crisis, which has seen more than 86,000 people seek asylum in Sweden in 2015.

“I am ready to listen to all suggestions,” he said and added that any “party prestige” should not stand in the way of co-operation across the political blocs.

“Sweden faces enormous challenges and we should then also show the strength of a united Sweden.”

The debate comes just days after fresh figures by the country's Migration Agency revealed that more refugees have sought asylum in Sweden so far in 2015 than in any other year in the Nordic nation's history.

86,223 people have launched cases in 2015, surpassing a previous record set in 1992 when 84,016 people sought asylum in the Scandinavian country following fighting in the Balkans.

But the leader of the Moderates in the centre-right Alliance, Anna Kinberg Batra, launched a scathing attack on Löfven's government in Wednesday's debate, calling for tightened border controls and temporary residence permits.

“It is obvious that the situtation is not sustainable and that the government can't control it,” she said.

READ ALSO: Tents to provide shelter for refugees in Sweden

The heated debate also saw nationalist Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson put forward a vote of no confidence in Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson for failing to plan for the refugee crisis, but this was immediately rubbished by leaders from both political blocs.

“You are about to turn this parliament into something far below its dignity,” said Löfven.

Åkesson announced the Sweden Democrats would put their support behind the Moderates' alternative budget proposal in a coming vote, Kinberg Batra replied her party would not support a vote of no confidence and ruled out seeking the nationalist's party backing.

“I am not prepared to rule with support by the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

Despite the controversy, Löfven's budget proposal is likely to pass in a vote later in October. The Alliance quartet indicated on Wednesday that plans to put forward four separate proposals –  none of which would enjoy enough support on their own to overrule Löfven's bid – remained intact.

Concerns had previously been raised that the government's budget would fall after the Christian Democrat party pulled out of a cross-party deal to let it through parliament in a shock announcement on Friday.

But while party leader Ebba Busch Thor on Wednesday hinted that the four Alliance parties could put forward a common budget proposal as early as this spring, Kinberg Batra was quick to underline that no decision had yet been made.

The December Agreement was struck in late 2014 after Prime Minister Stefan Löfven's Social Democrat-Green coalition called a re-election because his budget fell in parliament. This happened because the nationalist Sweden Democrats backed the centre-right opposition's budget instead of abstaining from the vote as had been expected.

SWEDEN DEMOCRATS

REVEALED: Sweden Democrats’ secret social media ‘troll factory’

A Swedish reporter went undercover for a whole year to confirm the existence of a far-right troll factory, run by the Sweden Democrats to spread content of benefit to the party and degrade its political opponents.

Published: 7 May 2024 15:34 CEST
REVEALED: Sweden Democrats' secret social media 'troll factory'

In the Kalla Fakta programme for broadcaster TV4, a reporter spent five months working undercover for the Sweden Democrats, first on the YouTube channel Riks, previously owned by the party, and later for the party’s communications team.

“I was undercover for a whole year, five months of which I was working [for the party],” Kalla Fakta’s reporter Daniel Andersson told The Local. “Two of them I was on Riks, the YouTube channel, and three of them I was in the communications department.”

During this period, Andersson wore a hidden camera to show how the YouTube channel, which the party claims is independent, is in fact closely linked with the party.

Andersson said he found out about the troll factory just before moving over to the communications department.

“They are in the same office building, Riks rents their office from the Sweden Democrats, so during lunch the departments often met, ate lunch together and talked a lot about it. That’s where I overheard secretive talks about anonymous accounts on social media, and they didn’t want to say what their name was or why they had them.”

The Sweden Democrats are also Riks’ largest source of financing, with daily meetings taking place between the channel’s owner, Jacob Hagnell, and Sweden Democrat head of communications Joakim Wallerstein.

Kalla Fakta’s report revealed that the party’s communications wing has been tasked with managing a large number of anonymous social media accounts, referred to within the party as a “troll factory”, an organised group of fake accounts with the aim of influencing public opinion and debate by spreading pro-Sweden Democrat content.

“We’re going to talk a lot more about how they operate in the next episode, in a week,” Andersson said. “But what we saw very early was that it was very, very systematic, it’s organised. And the purpose is to create a huge load of posts on different social media to create an illusion of the fact that the Sweden Democrats and their image of the world and of Sweden is larger than it is.”

“The boss is Joakim Wallerstein, the communications chief of the Sweden Democrats. He’s also the mastermind behind this – we also identified Riks as a part of it, where he is creating a conservative ecosystem, troll factory, to manipulate people’s views of the world,” he added.

Back in 2022, the Sweden Democrats were accused of running a “troll factory” by left-wing newspaper Dagens ETC. At the time, the party rejected the accusations, calling ETC’s article “unserious and obvious activism” in an email to SVT, while admitting that a group called Battlefield, responsible for moderating the party’s comments boxes on social media, did exist at one point.

In the new Kalla Fakta programme and in another interview with Dagens ETC, Wallerstein admits that these anonymous accounts exist, although he rejects the term “troll factory”.

“I don’t think I’ve been running so called troll sites, for the simple reason that I haven’t been spreading false information,” he told Kalla Fakta.

Andersson believes this is nothing more than damage control from the party.

“He doesn’t want to acknowledge that it is a troll factory. He doesn’t see a problem with the fact that they are anonymous, or the fact that the connection to the party is hidden,” Andersson said.

By Paul O’Mahony and Becky Waterton

Hear TV4’s reporter Daniel Andersson explain more about the investigation in the next episode of The Local’s podcast, Sweden in Focus. Out on Friday, May 10th. 

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