The rising threat to social democracy

It is a measure of how dangerously inured to the rise of the far Right we have become that the fact that a gang of neo-Nazi populists can command around a fifth of the vote in a national election in Sweden – Sweden! – is regarded as some sort of salvation for democracy. It is no such thing. Yes, the rightist Sweden Democrats might have done even better, and for that every (true) democrat in the world should be thankful, but they are not going to go away.

Today, like social democrat sister parties in Germany, Italy, France and elsewhere, Sweden’s are failing to keep up with anti-immigrant, antiMuslim, anti-trade, anti-globalisation and anti-EU insurgencies. The mainstream parties in Sweden, and throughout Europe, should be very afraid of the success of the Swedish Democrats.

The genius of social democracy, historically, is that it has been the political movement, more than any other, that stood for that essential balance between industrial efficiency and social equity. That is how it made communism and fascism irrelevant: because it worked.

If European social democracy is not to endure a long, painful demise, it will need to rediscover that old talent for protecting the people. If they feel they have been abandoned, we know only too well what can flow from that sense of alienation.

Sweden, and Europe, has been warned, and not for the first time.