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JAN BJÖRKLUND

Swedish Liberal leader auctions shirt off his back to fight racism

The leader of Sweden's Liberal party put a blue shirt he wore throughout the campaign up for auction on election day Sunday, vowing to donate the money to an anti-racist magazine as the far-right was tipped to win record votes.

Published: 9 September 2018 18:04 CEST
Swedish Liberal leader auctions shirt off his back to fight racism
Jan Björklund. Photo: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND / AFP
“I have defended my view of a liberal society with rolled up shirtsleeves. My shirt has been with me in this fight,” Jan Björklund wrote in an advertisement on the Tradera auction site. 
 
“Number of debates: 12, Size: L (why would I choose S or M?), Colour: blue (the colour of freedom), Price: the highest bidder (I'm in favour of free trade),” Björklund wrote cheekily of the shirt he reportedly wore almost every day during the election campaign.
 
 
He said the money would be donated to the magazine “Expo, an organisation relentlessly fighting against the nauseating worldview of nationalism”.  
 
The gesture — a form of electioneering to any objective observer — is permissible in Sweden, where campaigning is allowed on election day.
 
The Liberal leader has been one of the most vocal voices against the Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigration party that is tipped to win around 20 percent of votes in Sunday's legislative elections. 
 
Founded in 1995 by Stieg Larsson, author of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” crime trilogy, and other anti-fascist activists, Expo runs a website and a magazine on far-right and neo-Nazi groups.

EUROPEAN UNION

Could major Norwegian party advocate EU membership?

A number of local departments say they are in favour of the Liberal (Venstre) party supporting EU membership for Norway.

Published: 11 February 2020 14:43 CET
Could major Norwegian party advocate EU membership?
Trine Skei Grande, leader of Venstre (The Liberal Party of Norway). File photo: AFP

Following annual conferences held by the party’s county-level groups last weekend, the Vestland, Viken, Oslo, Rogaland, Vestfold and Telemark all supported motions to making a Norwegian ‘yes’ to future EU membership a party principle for the Liberals, a junior partner in the coalition government.

Business minister Iselin Nybø, who led the committee which proposed the motion, said that the question of EU membership is likely to dominate the party’s national congress in April.

“The big challenges faced by the world need us to work together to find solutions, and I think the Liberals are ready to select to the EU as the collaborative arena,” Nybø told news agency NTB in a written comment.

But Liberal party leader Trine Skei Grande, who will be standing for re-election at the national congress, is opposed to Norwegian EU membership.

A minority in the committee setting forth policy proposals, which includes former leader Odd Einar Dørum, wants to retain the current wording that any future EU membership should be decided via a referendum, NTB reports.

The Liberal party in Møre and Romsdal also had its annual meeting last weekend, but did not decide on the EU issue.

READ ALSO: Norway is more prolific than almost any EU country for buying consumer goods

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