Sweden's 2022 Deal with the Far Right Has Transformed It Into a Xenophobic, Authoritarian State
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/martin-gelin. "How Sweden lost its soul – and stopped being Sweden | Martin Gelin | The Guardian." September 11, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author argues that Sweden, once known for being welcoming and humane, has become cruel and hostile toward immigrants and vulnerable people ever since mainstream conservatives made a deal with a far-right party in 2022. He says this shift—seen in deporting sick children, building prisons for teens, and ignoring climate scientists—has become so normalized that even the left-leaning opposition has failed to challenge it, and warns that undoing this transformation will take much more than winning one election.
Conclusion
Since the 2022 Tidö agreement between mainstream conservatives and the far-right Sweden Democrats, Sweden has undergone a profound transformation away from its historical identity as a tolerant, humanitarian, progressive nation into one characterized by cruelty, xenophobia, and authoritarianism—and this will take more than a single election to reverse.
Premises
- The government has enacted harsh immigration policies targeting vulnerable people, including deporting a baby, a four-year-old autistic child, an elderly man with dementia, and other long-term legal residents, with officials refusing to make exceptions for individual circumstances.
- The 2022 Tidö agreement between conservative parties and the far-right Sweden Democrats broke Sweden's long-standing 'cordon sanitaire' against cooperating with the radical right, effectively transferring conservative leadership to far-right influence despite the Sweden Democrats holding no formal ministerial positions.
- Independent human rights bodies (the Swedish Institute for Human Rights and Civil Rights Defenders) have documented a shift in government rhetoric and policy from a focus on rights to a focus on control, alongside rising xenophobia and hate crimes.
- The government has adopted authoritarian crime policies targeting children (including building prisons for 14-year-olds) against the explicit advice of criminologists and experts, and has abandoned scientific consensus on climate policy by ceasing consultation with leading climate scientists.
- Mainstream conservatives have distanced themselves from previous inclusive centre-right leaders (Reinfeldt, Bildt) and promoted a nationalist 'cultural canon' that excludes contributions from multicultural Sweden since 1975, signaling an ideological repudiation of pluralism.
- The far right has imported US-style culture war tactics and rhetoric (e.g., claims of media 'witch-hunts,' scapegoating Muslim voters, ethnonationalist framing), which have become normalized in Swedish political discourse and media.
- Even the centre-left Social Democratic opposition has absorbed and appropriated many far-right positions rather than offering a clear alternative, suggesting the ideological shift is not confined to one party but has moved the entire Overton window.
Assumptions
- Sweden previously possessed a genuine, stable national identity rooted in tolerance, humanitarianism, and progressive egalitarianism, rather than this being an idealized or incomplete characterization.
- Policy shifts and rhetorical changes over a four-year period constitute a fundamental change in national character rather than a temporary political cycle.
- The 2022 political pact is the primary causal driver of these changes, rather than being one factor among broader European or global trends toward right-wing populism.
- Expert and scientific consensus (from criminologists, human rights bodies, climate scientists) should be determinative in policymaking, and deviation from it represents a departure from legitimate governance.
- The described policy outcomes (deportations, prison-building, reduced climate engagement) are representative of the government's overall approach rather than exceptional or isolated cases.
- A nation's 'soul' or identity can be meaningfully lost or regained through electoral and policy changes.