Danish People’s Party and Danish Immigration Policy Transformation

The author explores the history of the Danish People’s Party and its effect on Danish immigration policy. The DPP was founded in 1995. It successfully continued the anti-immigration course of the Danish Progress Party fallen into disrepair. The Danish People’s Party represented a synthesis of several political currents: the Lutheran movement Tidehverv and its journal, intellectual nationalists from the Danish Association, and conservative populists from the Progress Party. The DPP seeks to drastically reduce non-Western immigration, opposes Islamization and favors cultural assimilation of immigrants. For 25 years, the Danish People’s Party has managed to maneuver between establishment parties and their small partners in the complicated multi-party political system of Denmark. Dissociated from radical elements, the DPP has occupied a stable position on the right of the traditional bourgeois parties. It has broken the long-term influence of centrist parties, and especially radical left-wing parties, on Danish policy. Collaboration with liberal-conservative forces from 2001 to 2011 and from 2015 to 2019 was the most productive for the Party. The DPP played a key role in writing the rules and conditions for immigration in the immigration law that was established by the government in May 2002. Most importantly, the document provided for strong restrictions in immigration policies, which resulted in what is often described as Europe’s strictest immigration laws. The 24-year rule has drawn a lot of attention. Thanks to European migrant crisis, the 2015 general election was historic for the Danish People’s Party. It got unprecedented electoral support and became Denmark’s second largest political party. However, the Party suffered a major defeat in the 2019 general election, recording its worst result since the establishment by wining 8.7% of votes – down from 21% in 2015, for the following reasons: depletion of anti-immigrant rhetoric and seizing the traditional DPP initiative by the establishment, increased political competition and party’s collaboration with the Social Democrats, unexpected for the DPP voters.