Yet beneath the veneer lies another truth. For although at first glance Sweden can look as though it might be taking in migrants for genuine and unalloyed reasons of good-heartedness, the guilt of Europe only runs more subtly through Swedish society than it does through its southern neighbours. Having had a minimal colonial history, the country does not suffer any serious legacy of colonialist guilt. And having remained neutral during the Second World War, it does not suffer guilt for military action. Yet guilt still hangs around those years. Although Sweden presents its neutrality as an example of the moral high ground, the further one moves from the 1940s the more shameful that studied neutrality becomes. And the clearer it also becomes that Sweden did not remain as neutral as it maintains. Not only because it permitted trains with Nazis and supplies to travel across its territory during the occupation of neighbouring Norway, but because it provided Germany with raw materials that allowed the Nazis to continue fighting.

The aftermath of the war brought further bruises to the country’s self-image. The extradition from Sweden of soldiers from the Baltic states who had fought against the Soviets was one small but significant episode. The lesson for the Swedes was that refugees returned can act as a moral taint as much as refugees not taken in the first place, whereas refugees staying in Sweden once there must be an unalloyed good. Or so the Swedes thought for a time.

Sweden’s pride over its ability to be a safe haven for the world’s asylum seekers began to shift in the 1990s when the country took in tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the wars in the Balkans. For the first time these refugees brought significant social problems. Bosnian gangs became a regular feature of the Swedish news. Despite this warning sign migration rates in the first decade and a half of the twenty-first century accelerated exponentially. The swift increase in the Swedish population – including population growth solely accounted for by immigration – led to the usual strains on public services. The official figures show a population of 8 million in 1969 and a projected population of 10 million by 2017, with (on current growth rates) the population reaching 11 million by 2024. This requires Sweden at normal levels of population increase to be building 71,000 new residences a year to meet the needs of the country by 2020, or 426,000 new residences in total by that date.3