Although there is a presumption that the Swedish people, like their political elites, were always in favour of such migration, the facts suggest otherwise. In 1993 the newspaper Expressen broke one of the great taboos of Swedish politics and published a rare opinion poll on the country’s actual views. Under the headline ‘Throw them out’ the paper revealed that 63 per cent of Swedish people wanted immigrants to go back to their home countries. An accompanying article by the paper’s editor-in-chief, Erik Månsson, noted that, ‘The Swedish people have a firm opinion on immigration and refugee policies. Those in power have the opposite opinion. It does not add up. It is an opinion bomb about to go off. That is why we are writing about this, starting today. Telling it just like it is. In black and white. Before the bomb goes off.’ As though to prove the point he was making, the only result of this opinion poll was that the owners of Expressen fired the paper’s editor-in-chief.

When migration to Sweden began to swell significantly in the 2000s the public discussion was kept in check not only by the uniformity of the political class but also by the political uniformity of the Swedish press. Perhaps more than any other country in Europe, the Swedish media viewed discussions related to immigration with a sense of disdain as well as danger. Research into the political sympathies of Swedish journalists has revealed that in 2011 almost half (41 per cent) were sympathetic to the Green Party. The only parties to come close to them in the affections of journalists were the Left Party (15 per cent), the Social Democratic Party (14 per cent) and the liberal conservative Moderate Party (14 per cent). Only around 1 per cent of journalists expressed sympathy for the Sweden Democrats, which is within the margin of error.4

Yet in 2016 this party that was so reviled by the journalistic class was the highest-ranking party in the Swedish polls. The story of how it got there reads like a cross section of modern Europe’s dilemmas. When the party was founded in the 1980s it was an unarguably racist as well as a nationalist movement. Its alliances and policies were in line with genuine far-right movements across Europe, including those advocating racial white supremacy. It was regarded in the way that the British National Party is viewed in the United Kingdom and never had any meaningful voice in politics. In the 1990s there was a conscious effort to reform the party, with the throwing out of people involved in neo-Nazi movements. Then in the 2000s a group of four young men, mainly born in the 1970s, looked for a way to break the Swedish status quo.