Sweden: Social Democrat Party Wants to Share the Misery When It Comes to Migration

The migration policy should ensure that few people immigrate to Sweden, and integration will now pay off the integration debt that the party believes Sweden has. 

A vital part of the latter is to obtain a mix of different people in Sweden’s various residential areas.

“Is this a complete turnaround in the political area, where we are forced to address the challenges that we have? I think that it is,” says Lawen Redar, who has developed the party’s new integration policy.

“We are serious about breaking up segregation and using housing policy as a motor in this work,”  she continues.

“Foresees a strict immigration”

The Social Democrats want to take away the asylum-seekers’ right to arrange their own housing, forbid municipalities from placing new arrivals in vulnerable neighborhoods, and reduce refugees going to vulnerable neighborhoods by threatening to withdraw social aid.

Caption: The Social Democrat party wants to forbid municipalities from placing new arrivals in vulnerable neighborhoods.

Jonas Attenius, chairman of the municipal council in Gothenburg, was elected during the party congress to the party’s executive committee. Therefore, he is now part of the party’s power center. He has taken part in putting together the party’s new integration policy at the congress.

New arrivals who come to Sweden should be placed in neighborhoods that are stronger socio-economically, he says.

“We have legislation that states that we must place people, and it is not a given that it always has to be a suburb. But that entails a strict migration (policy), which is at a very low level.

Caption: Housing policies should be used as a motor to break down segregation, according to the Social Democrat party.

Is the mixing of different socio-economic groups a goal of the Social Democrats?

“Yes, that we need to mix populations is long-term. I usually say, ‘in a generation’. That is long-term.”

“It is important to use our housing construction to achieve this mixing. How we live is also segregated. In one place, there are rental apartments. In another, villas and townhouses. That is where we want to work with mixed construction.” 

Apology to new arrivals placed in suburbs

Since the 2022 election, Social Democrats have taken large metropolitan voters from the wealthier neighborhoods, particularly from the Moderates, the so-called Magda Moderates.

Caption: Jonas Attenius wants to apologize to the new arrivals who have been placed in vulnerable neighborhoods.

Jonas Attenius does not believe that voters will leave the Social  Democrats because of the party’s plan to put many new arrivals in the socio-economically strong areas. On the contrary, he believes that voters will welcome the proposal.

“I am convinced of that. But, again: this entails a strong migration policy,” he says.

Jonas Attenius also says that he wants to apologize to the people who have come to Sweden in the last 30 years, who have been placed in neighborhoods that today are classified as vulnerable.

“Excuse us,” he says to them. “Excuse us for having done this. It is now time that all of society’s force be applied. If a refugee family moves to Sweden into an apartment building where people who have lived in Sweden all their lives are living, and five blocks away, another new arriving family moves in, I don’t think that is any problem.”

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