New Right (Denmark)

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New Right
Nye Borgerlige
Abbreviation NB
D[lower-alpha 1]
Leader Vacant
Deputy leaders Vacant (Political deputy leader)
Jesper Hammer (Organisational deputy leader)
Founded 19 October 2015; 9 years ago (2015-10-19)
Headquarters Christiansborg
1241 København K
Youth wing Nye Borgerliges Ungdom
Membership  (2022) 16,726
Ideology
Political position Right-wing[4][5] to far-right[1][6][7]
Colours      Teal
Folketing
3 / 179
Regional councils
7 / 205
Municipal councils
43 / 2,436
Website
nyeborgerlige.dk
Politics of Denmark
Political parties
Elections

Nye Borgerlige (NB for short and often translated as the New Right)[lower-alpha 2] is a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party in Denmark. Formed by Pernille Vermund and Peter Seier Christensen[lower-alpha 3] in 2015, the party first entered the Danish Parliament, the Folketing, in the 2019 general election with four seats (out of 179) and again in the 2022 general election with six.

Vermund functioned as party leader (chairman) until she stepped down in February 2023. She was succeeded by Lars Boje Mathiesen, who was subsequently expelled from the party a month later due to disputes over remuneration and campaign finances. Since then, the party's national executive temporarily exercises collective leadership pending the election of a new leader. After three defections, the party's number of seats in the Folketing is three, and it is in opposition.

The youth wing of the party is Nye Borgerliges Ungdom (NBU).

History

Vermund leadership (2015–2023)

Founding and outside the Folketing

File:Nye Borgerlige stifterne, 2015.jpg
Peter Seier Christensen and Pernille Vermund in Snekkersten, October 2015

On 24 September 2015, architect Pernille Vermund and chemical engineer Peter Seier Christensen, both former members of the Conservative People's Party,[9] announced that they were in the process of establishing a new party under the working title Vi Konservative (We Conservatives)[10] but chose to use the word borgerlig to differentiate themselves from the Conservative People's Party, which is often simply referred to as "the Conservatives".[11] Although the founders were both former Conservative members, they said that they would describe themselves as "a mix of the Danish People's Party and the Liberal Alliance".[11] On 20 October 2015, the two founders launched the party website and published a party manifesto (principal programme, principprogram).[12] The party was founded as a reaction to the 2015 European migrant crisis.[13][14]

On 21 September 2016, they announced that the party had gathered the 20,109 signatures required to run in the upcoming general election, which was confirmed by the Ministry of the Interior on 6 October, when the party, upon request, received the election letter "D".[15] From the very beginning, Nye Borgerlige set forth three "non-negotiable demands" (ufravigelige krav) as a prerequisite for backing any government; these were a total asylum freeze, eviction of criminal foreigners after their first conviction, and that foreigners staying in Denmark must be able to support themselves.[16][17][18]

On 12 November 2016, Nye Borgerlige held its first ever annual convention (årsmøde) in Fredericia.[19][20] According to the analytics company Gallup in November 2016, the party primarily obtained its voters from the Danish People's Party.[21]

After the party's founding, municipal council members in several municipalities switched from their original parties to Nye Borgerlige.[22] Most of these were lost in the 2017 local elections, where it only secured one seat: former Conservative People's Party member Mette Thiesen in Hillerød Municipality.[23]

2019 general election

File:Pernille Vermund, interview.jpg
Vermund during an interview to the DR in Snekkersten during August 2019

Vermund repeatedly emphasised the party's requirements for support[24][25] apart from announcing her intention to resign should the party not enter the Folketing.[26] In the election campaign, Nye Borgerlige was unexpectedly challenged by the sudden emergence of the far-right party Stram Kurs, but at the 2019 general election on 5 June, Nye Borgerlige obtained 2.4% of the vote, equal to four seats, whereby the party acquired representation in the Folketing, whereas Stram Kurs with 1.8% did not surpass the 2% threshold.[27] NB's first parliamentary group consisted of Pernille Vermund (South Jutland), Peter Seier Christensen (Zealand), Mette Thiesen (North Zealand), and Lars Boje Mathiesen (East Jutland).[28] As the majority in Parliament shifted to the left at the election, the leader of the Social Democrats Mette Frederiksen formed the same month a minority government (Frederiksen I) to which Nye Borgerlige would serve as an opposition party.[29]

Early in the election period, the party decided against custom to invest most of its funds in communication and not policy development, in a ratio described as "80/20".[30] Nye Borgerlige gained popularity and became well-known for its successful social media strategy, especially on Facebook.[31][32][33] In February 2021, it became, by its official 18,000 members, the Danish political party with the third highest membership count, succeeded only by the Social Democrats and Venstre.[34] Two years later, however, newspaper accounts questioned the party's official membership counts, quoting several former party activists reporting that they were instructed not to remove people not paying membership fees from the membership lists in order to create a higher membership number.[35][36]

In February 2021, the party got its highest single opinion poll to date, suggesting 11%,[37] with journalist Lea Korsgaard describing the party as a "cultural phenomenon" in July of the same year.[30] The 2021 local elections resulted in a nationwide performance of 3.6%, awarding the party 64 seats instead of the previous single one.[38]

In the 2022 European Union opt-out referendum in June, Nye Borgerlige campaigned for a no,[39] with 66.9% of voters voting yes.[40] After its initial support in opinion polls during the election period, the party's popularity started dwindling from early 2021 onwards, and in particular following the launch of a new right-wing populist party named Denmark Democrats with former minister Inger Støjberg as party leader.[41][42]

In August 2022, widespread dissatisfaction among local party members were reported in the media, in particular on Funen and Zealand, because of the centralized decison-making concerning the choice of parliamentary candidates, where the national executive chose the leading candidates regardless of local support. The top management led to defections from local councillors and other party activists.[43][44]

2022 general election and Vermund resignation

File:Nye Borgerlige, FT-gruppe 2022.jpg
Nye Borgerlige's parliamentary group at Christiansborg in December 2022[lower-alpha 4]

At the 2022 general election on 1 November, the party received 3.7% and won six seats as the four original MFs were re-elected in the same constituencies along with Mikkel Bjørn (Funen) and Kim Edberg Andersen (North Jutland).[45] Mette Thiesen left the party on 7 November due to an incident in which her boyfriend had exercised physical violence towards a member of Nye Borgerlige's secretariat, consequently becoming the fastest politician in Danish history to leave the party of their election.[46][47] She would later join the Danish People's Party.[48][49]

In the aftermath of the election, Vermund faced internal critique for having made a campaign that was too vague and pragmatic, focusing on an excess of key issues and too little on immigration policy.[42][50] Many party activists were also frustrated by the thorough top management of the party, and in particular the central hand-picking of parliamentary candidates.[42][51]

The press secretary for seven years, Lars Kaaber, was dismissed on 24 November.[52] In December, a new grand coalition majority government headed by Mette Frederiksen consisting of the Social Democrats, Venstre, and the Moderates (the SVM government) took office, to which Nye Borgerlige is serving as opposition.[53][54]

On 10 January 2023, Pernille Vermund issued a statement saying that she would step down as leader at the party's next annual convention and would not run for reelection to the Folketing. Vermund explained her resignation with a desire to get "my life and family back".[55][56]

Most political observers pointed at Lars Boje Mathiesen as her most likely successor as party leader, though some thought that Mikkel Bjørn might also make a bid for the party leadership.[57][58][59] The two were seen as representing the liberal and the national conservative wings in the party, respectively.[60][61]

On 17 January, Boje announced his leadership candidacy, receiving support from the remaining parliamentary group with the exception of Bjørn (and Vermund, who as outgoing chairman had announced that she would abstain from commenting on the choice of her successor).[62] In the end, no other candidates entered the race for chairman, ensuring Boje's unanimous election as party leader[63] on 7 February.[64]

Before that, on 24 January Mikkel Bjørn left Nye Borgerlige for the Danish People's Party, citing internal dissension with Boje and a lack of belief in his abilities to lead.[65] In turn, Boje blamed Bjørn for putting himself before the party,[66] whereas Vermund criticized Bjørn for leaving his post prematurely and taking his seat to another party, having been elected for Nye Borgerlige with the lowest personal number of votes of all the party's parliamentarians.[67] Bjørn's defection was followed by those of the chairman and deputy chairman of the youth wing Nye Borgerliges Ungdom.[61]

Boje leadership (February–March 2023)

File:Lars Boje Mathiesen, 2023.jpg
Lars Boje Mathiesen at Nye Borgerlige's extraordinary annual convention on 7 February 2023 in Fredericia moments after being elected chairman. He would be expelled from the party the following month

Besides the election of Boje, the party convention on 7 February 2023 among six aspiring candidates elected local councillor Henriette Ergemann as new political deputy leader by 204 out of the 317 delegates' votes, the former deputy leader Peter Seier Christensen having in January announced his resignation.[68][69] After 13 days, however, Ergemann resigned following criticism of a number of controversial statements by her about COVID-19 vaccines and political opponents.[70] On 6 March, she left the party.[71]

Some commentators predicted that the election of Boje would move the party towards a less pragmatic, less national conservative and more liberal and protest party-like position,[61][72] though Boje himself stated that he would continue the political line of Vermund.[62] However, only 31 days after his election, on 10 March it was announced that the national executive of Nye Borgerlige had, the day prior, unanimously chosen to dismiss Boje as party leader and expel him from the party due to disputes over remuneration and campaign finances.[73][74] Boje would continue in the Folketing as an independent.[75] Following the expulsion of Boje, Vermund conveyed her willingness to once again take over as party leader[76][77] and to run in the next general election.[78]

As a concomitant of Boje's expulsion, the party was set to lose DKK 3.5 million of its public funds, with effect after 12 months.[79]

National executive leadership (March 2023–present)

After the expulsion of Boje, the party decided to defer election of a new chairman and political deputy chairman to the next ordinary annual meeting in October 2023. In the meantime, the organisational deputy leader Jesper Hammer together with the other members of the national executive was to take care of the chairman functions. Vermund, being a member of the national executive and the party's political spokesman in Folketinget, is as of July 2023 the only candidate for the party leadership office.[80]

The expulsion of Boje led to a further exodus of dissatisfied members. During the week following his expulsion, some 500 members, including several local councillors, left the party. Roughly 2,000 members altogether had left the party since the general election in November.[81] From the local election in November 2021 until March 2023, the party lost 22 out of its 64 municipal council members,[82] including all its representatives in the four biggest cities of Denmark.[lower-alpha 5][83][84] Going in the opposite direction, on 13 June Martin Henriksen, a former Danish People's Party MF and current council member of Stevns Municipality, joined Nye Borgerlige.[85]

On 4 April, MP Peter Seier Christensen called in sick with stress, effectively reducing Nye Borgerlige's number of active parliamentarians to two until his return.[86][lower-alpha 6][84]

On 10 May, Vermund announced a more pragmatic strategy for the party, which included stopping insisting that NB's three main immigration policy demands were completely non-negotiable. According to Vermund, insisting on having these demands fulfilled as a prerequisite for supporting a right-wing government would not make sense given the parliamentary situation.[86]

Party platform

Nye Borgerlige does not consider itself to be ideologically bound, but defines itself as a party that "starts from the given and wants to develop society based on knowledge and experience rather than revolutionise on the basis of faith and ideology".[88] Store Norske Leksikon writes about the party that it "is in favour of Danish withdrawal from the EU, a liberal economic policy and a further tightening of immigration policy".[89] According to the party's 2015 manifesto, it combines "a classically conservative value-based policy with a borgerlig economic policy and an unambiguous resistance towards conventions and supranational agreements limiting Danish democracy". With this combination, the party is located on the right side of the political spectrum regarding both the distribution and value dimensions.[90]

The party has been described as national conservative,[3] national liberal,[91][92] right-wing populist[1][2] and nationalist.[93] Nye Borgerlige is libertarian on economic issues[1][2] and is against immigration[1][2] and was additionally called anti-Islam.[1]

The party's five main principles are:[88][90]

  • A strong cultural community of values
  • Less state, more human
  • Common responsibility for society's weakest
  • Reasonable protection of natural values
  • Freedom, democracy, and national sovereignty

Election results

Parliament (Folketing)

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See also: Folketing
File:Folketingsvalget 2022 - Opstillingskredse D andel af stemmer.svg
A map of the 2022 general election, showing the vote share received by Nye Borgerlige in each nomination district and constituency
Election Leader Votes  % Seats +/– Government
2019 Pernille Vermund 83,228 2.4 (#9)
4 / 179
New Opposition
2022 129,524 3.7 (#10)
6 / 179
Increase 2 Opposition

Local elections

Municipal elections
Date Leader Seats
# ±
2017 Pernille Vermund
1 / 2,432
New
2021
64 / 2,436
Increase 63
 
Regional elections
Date Leader Seats
# ±
2017 Pernille Vermund
0 / 205
New
2021
8 / 205
Increase 8

Party leadership

№ Leader Took office Left office Time in office
1 Pernille Vermund
(born 1975)		 19 October 2015 7 February 2023 Lua error in Module:Age at line 846: attempt to call method 'subtract' (a nil value).
2 Lars Boje Mathiesen
(born 1975)		 7 February 2023 9 March 2023 Lua error in Module:Age at line 846: attempt to call method 'subtract' (a nil value).

Notes

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References

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External links


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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  6. ↑ https://www.liberation.fr/planete/2019/06/04/au-danemark-la-victoire-ideologique-de-l-extreme-droite_1731603/
  7. ↑ https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2022/11/02/au-danemark-le-bloc-de-gauche-de-la-premiere-ministre-mette-frederiksen-remporte-les-elections-legislatives_6148140_3210.html
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