On Monday, April 8th, two Swedish politicians with high name recognition announced a new list of candidates for the EU Parliament election in June:
- Sara Skyttedal, a Christian Democrat who is currently a non-affiliated Member of the European Parliament, and
- Jan Emanuel, a Social Democrat who served nearly eight years in the Swedish Riksdag.
Skyttedal was recently booted from the Christian Democrats, although her interpretation is that she voluntarily left the party after “losing trust” in Ebba Busch, the party chairwoman. As a result of being ostracized from the party, Skyttedal found herself without an electable position on any ballot for the EU parliament in June. Her contacts with the Sweden Democrats led nowhere as far as her re-election bid was concerned.
Now, though, thanks to Jan Emanuel, her new strange political bedfellow, Skyttedal seems to believe she can come back to Brussels for a second term in the parliament.
Unlike Skyttedal, who has been chairwoman of the Christian Democrat party’s youth league and mayor of the city of Linköping, Emanuel is no career politician. His path into the Swedish parliament was paved by his participation in a TV reality show; after his stint as an elected official, he became an entrepreneur with government procurement as one of his specialties.
Emanuel has maintained a presence on the outskirts of the Swedish political discourse, but the EU election list he has now launched with Skyttedal is his first foray back into the thick of politics.
The list, which goes by the name Folklistan,—‘The People’s List’—has already attracted a fair amount of attention. All three main news broadcasts of the evening of April 8th ran the story; the biggest of them, SVT Aktuellt, topped with it. However, none of them were allowed to interview either Emanuel or Skyttedal—those interviews were promised for April 9th when the two have had a formal press conference during the day.
Rather than launching their bid for the EU parliament on any established media platform, the two chose to do it on the 100 Percent YouTube channel, which is run by political commentator Henrik Jönsson. It was a fascinating, half-hour-long show where Skyttedal and Emanuel presented themselves as political mavericks and disruptors of the status quo.
I don’t buy it. I call bluff here.
Right off the bat, Sara Skyttedal explained that The People’s List is not a political party, but an “electoral cooperation” list. She gave two reasons why The People’s List is not a political party, the first being that there are enough ideologies in politics already.
As we shall see in a moment, she does not even believe her own words here. For starters, with her announcement of a non-ideological election list, Skyttedal tells voters who have ideas and visions for what they want the EU to be—or not be—to look elsewhere for someone to vote for. An experienced Swedish politician like her would never announce the death of ideologies; ideologies have guided Swedish voters in their elections for as long as the country has had universal suffrage. Ideologies are very much alive in Sweden, and someone like Skyttedal knows it.
So what is her reason for calling the death of ideologies? She gave away the answer in the next few sentences by suggesting that she and Jan Emanuel, her political associate, do not share the same fundamental ideas on what the EU should or should not be.
Instead, she believes the focus should be on the individuals that people elect as their representatives. She spells it out around 7:55 into the video:
I have not exactly made any qualms about the fact that I would like to continue to represent Sweden. And I do believe that it makes a very big difference who we send [to the parliament]. It matters less what party you represent and more who we send to Brussels.
So far, Skyttedal might have been genuine, but she is not. Her downplaying of ideologies is contradicted at 13:05, when Emanuel and Skyttedal have explained that The People’s List was Emanuel’s idea. He then says that he wanted Skyttedal to be on the list for the EU election precisely because she harbors Christian Democratic values.
No ideologues on the list, but a Christian Democrat named Sara Skyttedal is fine.
As far as Skyttedal is concerned, there is no doubt that People’s List is her last straw at staying in the coveted position of being a Member of the European Parliament.
To reinforce the insincerity of the ‘death to ideologies’ announcement, Emanuel and Skyttedal reveal that there are six names in total on their list. These candidates are all from different political parties, which prompted Henrik Jönsson to ask how they intend to piece together a coherent, understandable “package” for the voters.
This is where the bluff-calling becomes particularly entertaining.
Explains Emanuel (14:05):
We have put together ten policy issues, like, what we think are the most important issues in the EU. When you are advocating a policy issue, you automatically have room for negotiations with others, who are passionate about something else. So these are the most important issues that we can agree on.
When pressed by Henrik Jönsson, Emanuel admits that the common denominator for the People’s List candidates is to promote “Swedish interests.” To make this work, he and Skyttedal now have to resort to a rhetorical smoke-and-mirrors show. They want to renegotiate the Swedish EU membership, in part by having Sweden join like-minded “countries”—notably not political parties—in an effort to stop “the unending concentration of power” (17:00). Then there is this:
Sweden should be able to stay out of some parts of the cooperation [under the EU], and if it turns out to be the case that we cannot stay out of those parts, we should be ready to leave the cooperation.
Within just over a quarter of an hour in the Swedish media spotlight, these two political pop-tarts have lured Euro-skeptic Swedish voters into believing that Sweden can rewrite the very constitutional charter of the EU in such a way that every country could turn the membership into a pick-and-choose membership.
Henrik Jönsson caught on to this point right away, asking outright if The People’s List is going to push for a Swedish secession from the EU. Emanuel, who appeared at first to be caught off guard by the question, launched into a winding explanation of how the Swedish EU membership is like a toxic relationship where one party says ‘I will never leave you, no matter what.’ This, he said, is a weak position when you go into negotiations; by hinting at a possible ‘Swexit,’ Emanuel appears to believe that Sweden could get a better deal out of being an EU member.
Skyttedal piled on, explaining the ‘deal breaker’ that would trigger a Swexit:
The ‘deal breaker’ is about us wanting national sovereignty over what parts [of the EU] we want to be a member of. Today, it says in the EU Charter that you have to adopt the common currency, everyone has to be a member of Schengen, and all this happens without the national parliaments having any chance to stop it.
She adds that she wants Sweden “to decide which parts we want to be in on”, thus reducing EU membership to a check-your-boxes menu.
After five years in the EU Parliament, Sara Skyttedal should know better. She should know that neither Swexit nor a pick-and-choose EU membership are even remotely meaningful issues to pursue for Sweden. No parliamentary party group would take seriously a new party—sorry, “electoral cooperation list”—whose only common denominator for all candidates is that they want to rewrite the very charter of the European Union.
There are other issues to fight for. Emanuel and Skyttedal also explained that they have ten policy issues they will bring to Brussels if they get elected, but they have not yet revealed what those issues are. However, if they don’t get their way with them, they are apparently going to use the threat of a ‘Swexit’ as their negotiating tactic.
Given how the European Parliament works, none of what the two leaders of the People’s List have thus far presented makes this a serious political project. It sounds more like an effort at getting Skyttedal back to Brussels; even though Emanuel is the top candidate, if they only get enough votes for one seat, it is entirely possible that his commitments to his business projects would preclude him from taking that seat. By stepping aside post-election, he yields the seat to Sara Skyttedal, his new political accessory.
This all makes the List look like a personal re-election project for Sara Skyttedal. She expressed her gratitude to Emanuel during the interview by repeatedly looking to him when, in reality, she was explaining something to her potential voters.
There is one more angle to this that makes me call bluff on this project. According to Emanuel and Skyttedal, if their list gets more candidates in, and those candidates come from yet other ideological backgrounds than they do, every one of them would join a different party group in the parliament. Emanuel would join the S&D group while Skyttedal would try to get back into the EPP group. Once there, she explained, she and the other list members would vote against their EU parties. Skyttedal explained that she has done it “thousands of times.”
Does this sound like a serious attempt at productive politics by someone who has already served five years in the parliament?
The People’s List seems to be a project driven by people who like the spotlight more than they like politics. That does not mean they can’t gather votes—on the contrary, with the right kind of marketing they could very well peel off enough votes from right-of-center Euroskeptics to tilt the Swedish EU election in favor of the pro-EU left.
New Swedish EU List: A Foray Into Pop-Tart Politics
Jan Emanuel and Sara Skyttedal
Photos: Janwikifoto, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons and Joakim Berndes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, respectively
On Monday, April 8th, two Swedish politicians with high name recognition announced a new list of candidates for the EU Parliament election in June:
Skyttedal was recently booted from the Christian Democrats, although her interpretation is that she voluntarily left the party after “losing trust” in Ebba Busch, the party chairwoman. As a result of being ostracized from the party, Skyttedal found herself without an electable position on any ballot for the EU parliament in June. Her contacts with the Sweden Democrats led nowhere as far as her re-election bid was concerned.
Now, though, thanks to Jan Emanuel, her new strange political bedfellow, Skyttedal seems to believe she can come back to Brussels for a second term in the parliament.
Unlike Skyttedal, who has been chairwoman of the Christian Democrat party’s youth league and mayor of the city of Linköping, Emanuel is no career politician. His path into the Swedish parliament was paved by his participation in a TV reality show; after his stint as an elected official, he became an entrepreneur with government procurement as one of his specialties.
Emanuel has maintained a presence on the outskirts of the Swedish political discourse, but the EU election list he has now launched with Skyttedal is his first foray back into the thick of politics.
The list, which goes by the name Folklistan,—‘The People’s List’—has already attracted a fair amount of attention. All three main news broadcasts of the evening of April 8th ran the story; the biggest of them, SVT Aktuellt, topped with it. However, none of them were allowed to interview either Emanuel or Skyttedal—those interviews were promised for April 9th when the two have had a formal press conference during the day.
Rather than launching their bid for the EU parliament on any established media platform, the two chose to do it on the 100 Percent YouTube channel, which is run by political commentator Henrik Jönsson. It was a fascinating, half-hour-long show where Skyttedal and Emanuel presented themselves as political mavericks and disruptors of the status quo.
I don’t buy it. I call bluff here.
Right off the bat, Sara Skyttedal explained that The People’s List is not a political party, but an “electoral cooperation” list. She gave two reasons why The People’s List is not a political party, the first being that there are enough ideologies in politics already.
As we shall see in a moment, she does not even believe her own words here. For starters, with her announcement of a non-ideological election list, Skyttedal tells voters who have ideas and visions for what they want the EU to be—or not be—to look elsewhere for someone to vote for. An experienced Swedish politician like her would never announce the death of ideologies; ideologies have guided Swedish voters in their elections for as long as the country has had universal suffrage. Ideologies are very much alive in Sweden, and someone like Skyttedal knows it.
So what is her reason for calling the death of ideologies? She gave away the answer in the next few sentences by suggesting that she and Jan Emanuel, her political associate, do not share the same fundamental ideas on what the EU should or should not be.
Instead, she believes the focus should be on the individuals that people elect as their representatives. She spells it out around 7:55 into the video:
So far, Skyttedal might have been genuine, but she is not. Her downplaying of ideologies is contradicted at 13:05, when Emanuel and Skyttedal have explained that The People’s List was Emanuel’s idea. He then says that he wanted Skyttedal to be on the list for the EU election precisely because she harbors Christian Democratic values.
No ideologues on the list, but a Christian Democrat named Sara Skyttedal is fine.
As far as Skyttedal is concerned, there is no doubt that People’s List is her last straw at staying in the coveted position of being a Member of the European Parliament.
To reinforce the insincerity of the ‘death to ideologies’ announcement, Emanuel and Skyttedal reveal that there are six names in total on their list. These candidates are all from different political parties, which prompted Henrik Jönsson to ask how they intend to piece together a coherent, understandable “package” for the voters.
This is where the bluff-calling becomes particularly entertaining.
Explains Emanuel (14:05):
When pressed by Henrik Jönsson, Emanuel admits that the common denominator for the People’s List candidates is to promote “Swedish interests.” To make this work, he and Skyttedal now have to resort to a rhetorical smoke-and-mirrors show. They want to renegotiate the Swedish EU membership, in part by having Sweden join like-minded “countries”—notably not political parties—in an effort to stop “the unending concentration of power” (17:00). Then there is this:
Within just over a quarter of an hour in the Swedish media spotlight, these two political pop-tarts have lured Euro-skeptic Swedish voters into believing that Sweden can rewrite the very constitutional charter of the EU in such a way that every country could turn the membership into a pick-and-choose membership.
Henrik Jönsson caught on to this point right away, asking outright if The People’s List is going to push for a Swedish secession from the EU. Emanuel, who appeared at first to be caught off guard by the question, launched into a winding explanation of how the Swedish EU membership is like a toxic relationship where one party says ‘I will never leave you, no matter what.’ This, he said, is a weak position when you go into negotiations; by hinting at a possible ‘Swexit,’ Emanuel appears to believe that Sweden could get a better deal out of being an EU member.
Skyttedal piled on, explaining the ‘deal breaker’ that would trigger a Swexit:
She adds that she wants Sweden “to decide which parts we want to be in on”, thus reducing EU membership to a check-your-boxes menu.
After five years in the EU Parliament, Sara Skyttedal should know better. She should know that neither Swexit nor a pick-and-choose EU membership are even remotely meaningful issues to pursue for Sweden. No parliamentary party group would take seriously a new party—sorry, “electoral cooperation list”—whose only common denominator for all candidates is that they want to rewrite the very charter of the European Union.
There are other issues to fight for. Emanuel and Skyttedal also explained that they have ten policy issues they will bring to Brussels if they get elected, but they have not yet revealed what those issues are. However, if they don’t get their way with them, they are apparently going to use the threat of a ‘Swexit’ as their negotiating tactic.
Given how the European Parliament works, none of what the two leaders of the People’s List have thus far presented makes this a serious political project. It sounds more like an effort at getting Skyttedal back to Brussels; even though Emanuel is the top candidate, if they only get enough votes for one seat, it is entirely possible that his commitments to his business projects would preclude him from taking that seat. By stepping aside post-election, he yields the seat to Sara Skyttedal, his new political accessory.
This all makes the List look like a personal re-election project for Sara Skyttedal. She expressed her gratitude to Emanuel during the interview by repeatedly looking to him when, in reality, she was explaining something to her potential voters.
There is one more angle to this that makes me call bluff on this project. According to Emanuel and Skyttedal, if their list gets more candidates in, and those candidates come from yet other ideological backgrounds than they do, every one of them would join a different party group in the parliament. Emanuel would join the S&D group while Skyttedal would try to get back into the EPP group. Once there, she explained, she and the other list members would vote against their EU parties. Skyttedal explained that she has done it “thousands of times.”
Does this sound like a serious attempt at productive politics by someone who has already served five years in the parliament?
The People’s List seems to be a project driven by people who like the spotlight more than they like politics. That does not mean they can’t gather votes—on the contrary, with the right kind of marketing they could very well peel off enough votes from right-of-center Euroskeptics to tilt the Swedish EU election in favor of the pro-EU left.
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