Oct 10, 2014 -- 2:51AM, DStyle wrote:

we should be very grateful that we have UKIP.In the latest general election in Sweden, the Sweden Democrats, who are the equivalent of the BNP, got 13% of the vote because every other mainstream party refused to make commitments about reducing immigration.They turned it into a them or us thing.That's right 1 in 7 people in a country which apparently is the most racially tolerant in the world were prepared to vote for massive dangerous racists because that's how concerned they are about this single issue.In the UK and in Sweden, and other parts of Europe, this is all about registering a vote over a single issue which affects a lot of peoples lives which isn't being addressed by the mainstream parties. People are showing that they don't care too much about the party that carries the issue.We should be grateful that we have a moderate bunch of mild misogynist anachronistic racists representing this issue rather than a motley collection of frothing cross burning loons.but of course, it would be better if the mainstream parties addressed these issues themselves.

Don't at all agree with your assessment of the Sweden Democrats. They have got much more in common with UKIP than with the BNP. In fact they are since a few months in the same group as UKIP in the European parliament. Would UKIP be happy to cooperate with a party that is just like the BNP?

The other political parties in Sweden, and journalists, in particular left wing journalist (who make up like three quarters of all Swedish journalists), do their best to label them as racists or at the very least xenophobic. But that doesn't make it true. You need to be either dishonest or have a very poor understanding of the word racist to call the Sweden Democrats a racist party.

I've seen that they are being called right wing extremists in British newspapers. But I really have no idea what would make them right wing. They are not even right wing by Swedish standards, much less on a British scale. Is the only requirement for being called right wing extremists that you want a (much) more restrictive immigration policy? Yes, they do want a more restrictive immigration policy, but would be happy with what is currently government policy in neighboring Denmark or Finland, or indeed many other EU countries. If the Sweden Democrats are a bunch of horrible racists then so are the ruling parties in Denmark, Finland and several other European countries. It's my opinion that the Sweden Democrats would pass for a mainstream party in many if not most of the other EU countries. They do stick out in Sweden because they are the only ones who want reduced immigration (the level is currently very high), and they are not as fond of multiculturalism as the other parties, and also more eurosceptic.