THE DANISH PEOPLE'S PARTY - DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE

by Rune Lauritzen

The Danish People's Party made headlines when they received nearly 27% of the Danish vote in the recent European Paliament election. This (along with the wave of support for nationalist and/or eurosceptic parties) has got left-wingers from far and wide screeching. On Huffington Post's list of the '9 Scariest Parties Now In The European Parliament' the Danish People's Party made no. 5. This makes them even more scary than Jobbik (no. 7) but a little less scary than Golden Dawn (no. 3).

This award for being as scary to left-wingers as Jobbik and Golden Dawn is unfortunately misplaced. The Danish People's Party is a scam that, unfortunately, fools many people into believing that a vote for them will be a vote for nationalism.

Huffington Post's recurring nightmare.

Experience disproves this. From 2001 to 2011, the Danish People's Party were the supporting party for the centre-right government. This meant that without their votes the government would have lost its majority. This is an incredible position for a small party to be in, and from this position they could have made some real changes to the catastrophic immigration policy made by the previous Social Democratic government. But instead of stopping the flow of non-Western immigrants, the amount of immigration into Denmark actually increased, and about 47% of all Danish citizenships granted to non-Westerners since 1979 were given during this this period.

The Danish People's Party is at best cultural conservatives. They are remarkably similar to the American flag-waving patriots like Dinesh D'Souza, and the critique of these false prophets of nationalism made by RamZPaul in his video A Nation is Not the Dirt could just as easily have been about the Danish People's Party.

The Danish People's Party's view on how to "become a Dane" can be summed up by Danish People's Party veteran and Lutheran priest, Søren Kraup, in an opinion piece he wrote for a major Danish newspaper a few years ago (translation by me):

“The other day I went over to Amalienborg Palace Square and came to have a look at one of the guardsmen in front of the palace. He stood tall and erect with his rifle and his bearskin hat, but the thing that caught my attention was his skin color. In all simplicity, he was Black. He was obviously a stranger who had come to Denmark and had become Danish, and now he stood, watchful and careful in a blue uniform and bearskin hat and took care of the Queen of Denmark. 'That's the way it should be', I said to myself. 'That's how an alien becomes a Dane."

Returning to the European Parliament election, when the Danish People's Party doubled their MEPs. Their leading candidate, Morten Messerschmidt who, despite his name, told reporters that he considered himself a part of "civilized, democratic Eurosceptics like the British conservatives," not part of the European nationalist group. Notice that he isn't even grouping himself with UKIP! And he even "regretted the growth of Front National, Jobbik and Golden Dawn."

I can only imagine the terror he felt when he realized that he had been considered by the Huffington Post to be more scary than Jobbik and almost as scary as Golden Dawn. Morten Messerschmidt, along with the rest of the Danish People's Party, is screeching – more like a Stuka – the same tune as the left-wingers.