Viggo Terling is Chief of Staff and Digital Manager at the Adam Smith Institute.
The Conservative Party is in an age of renewal. Having fallen short over 14 years to enact the change this country needed, under Kemi Badenoch, One Nation Conservatism is being consigned to the history books, former Cabinet ministers are being denied candidacy, and a distinctly new policy direction is taking shape.
A country suffering as a result of decades of stagnation and decline requires decisive leadership and consequential decision-making to heal. So far, Kemi’s transformation of the Conservative Party and its policies have shown such potential: her commitment to abolishing Stamp Duty could transform our inert housing market, while rumours of an inheritance tax abolition could provide a first incentive to attract back many of the wealth creators we have lost under two years of this Government.
But as Kemi matures as party leader, and with her the party’s policy platform, it is vital that she looks not only to learn from previous Conservative Party failures, but also from the mistakes — and successes — of our sister parties abroad.
In that regard, no better recent model for a successful Conservative government exists than that which we have seen over the previous four years in Sweden. The Tidö administration offers lessons not only in how to successfully curb rising illegal and legal migration, grow the economy and expand energy production, but also in how to deal with an insurgent populist party on the right.
In 2022, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s government won the narrowest of majorities, achieving something that many consider to be a rarity in Swedish politics: the formation of a right-wing government. He was, in part, only able to do so by acknowledging the existence of the Sweden Democrats, Sweden’s Reform UK equivalent.
Although they were the second-largest party in Swedish politics at the time, he stopped short of offering them ministerial positions, instead allowing the Sweden Democrats intimate involvement in the government’s policy formation, particularly on immigration.
In 2022, Sweden had serious problems with immigration and the knock-on effects associated with it. A country that had enjoyed idyllic Scandinavian tranquillity just a decade earlier had, by the 2020s, been forced to confront rampant organised crime, deadly gang violence and 391 shootings in 2022 alone. The issues surrounding migration were fracturing Swedish society from within, just as they are fracturing British society today.
Four years on, the situation is very different. Through specific policy reforms, gang violence and organised crime have been quelled, deadly shootings have fallen by 75 per cent and the number of people seeking asylum in Sweden is at its lowest level since 1985. The reason for the scale of this success is multivariate, but one is because Sweden, in Gunnar Strömmer, has one of the most brilliant and effective justice ministers in Europe, if not the world.
One must also recognise that some of this success stems from Ulf Kristersson’s decision to acknowledge the strength of feeling on migration and, by extension, to be bold enough to work with the Sweden Democrats in addressing the issue.
On the economy, the successes have been, arguably, even greater. Although I say this slightly facetiously, there is a serious argument to be made that, over four years, the Swedish economy has been transformed into one more capitalist than that of the United States. Gone should be the days when Sweden is used as the archetype for the opposite. Gone are the days when Sweden was a socialist utopia.
Today, as a salaried employee in Sweden, your tax burden will also be the lowest it has been since 1975, while the amount you can invest in an ISK — Sweden’s (better) version of an ISA — has been doubled. And after all that, you do not pay a wealth tax on your success, nor will you be forced to give any of it away after you die, as Sweden has no inheritance tax.
Furthermore, it has become easier to start and scale a business in Sweden than almost anywhere else in the world. The scale of the Tidö government’s achievement in transforming Sweden into a vibrant and growing capital market was made clear when Verisure listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange rather than the LSE. It was the largest listing in Europe that year, and the company chose “socialist Sweden” over the UK.
However, the Swedish election will be decisive in determining whether this trajectory can continue. Ulf Kristersson’s government went to the polls on Sunday, fighting for re-election. Regardless of the result, which remains inconclusive, the scale of his achievement must be recognised. Centre-right governments today are often characterised as stale and slow to change; Sweden’s has been the opposite.
The achievements I have listed on migration and the economy alone sound like what would be a dream outcome for the Conservative Party should it return to Number 10. It is therefore vital that Kemi looks outward and reflects on success stories such as Sweden’s. Not every Swedish policy can, of course, be transplanted into the UK. But our sister party has a bloody good record to be jealous of, if nothing else — and sibling rivalry is always a good motivator for improvement.
As a Swede, I proudly voted for a movement I was confident would deliver a conservative agenda in Government. I hope to be able to do so soon again in this country. Perhaps Kemi could borrow one final line from her Swedish sister party: vi är på rätt väg — men vi är inte framme.
Viggo Terling is Chief of Staff and Digital Manager at the Adam Smith Institute.
The Conservative Party is in an age of renewal. Having fallen short over 14 years to enact the change this country needed, under Kemi Badenoch, One Nation Conservatism is being consigned to the history books, former Cabinet ministers are being denied candidacy, and a distinctly new policy direction is taking shape.
A country suffering as a result of decades of stagnation and decline requires decisive leadership and consequential decision-making to heal. So far, Kemi’s transformation of the Conservative Party and its policies have shown such potential: her commitment to abolishing Stamp Duty could transform our inert housing market, while rumours of an inheritance tax abolition could provide a first incentive to attract back many of the wealth creators we have lost under two years of this Government.
But as Kemi matures as party leader, and with her the party’s policy platform, it is vital that she looks not only to learn from previous Conservative Party failures, but also from the mistakes — and successes — of our sister parties abroad.
In that regard, no better recent model for a successful Conservative government exists than that which we have seen over the previous four years in Sweden. The Tidö administration offers lessons not only in how to successfully curb rising illegal and legal migration, grow the economy and expand energy production, but also in how to deal with an insurgent populist party on the right.
In 2022, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s government won the narrowest of majorities, achieving something that many consider to be a rarity in Swedish politics: the formation of a right-wing government. He was, in part, only able to do so by acknowledging the existence of the Sweden Democrats, Sweden’s Reform UK equivalent.
Although they were the second-largest party in Swedish politics at the time, he stopped short of offering them ministerial positions, instead allowing the Sweden Democrats intimate involvement in the government’s policy formation, particularly on immigration.
In 2022, Sweden had serious problems with immigration and the knock-on effects associated with it. A country that had enjoyed idyllic Scandinavian tranquillity just a decade earlier had, by the 2020s, been forced to confront rampant organised crime, deadly gang violence and 391 shootings in 2022 alone. The issues surrounding migration were fracturing Swedish society from within, just as they are fracturing British society today.
Four years on, the situation is very different. Through specific policy reforms, gang violence and organised crime have been quelled, deadly shootings have fallen by 75 per cent and the number of people seeking asylum in Sweden is at its lowest level since 1985. The reason for the scale of this success is multivariate, but one is because Sweden, in Gunnar Strömmer, has one of the most brilliant and effective justice ministers in Europe, if not the world.
One must also recognise that some of this success stems from Ulf Kristersson’s decision to acknowledge the strength of feeling on migration and, by extension, to be bold enough to work with the Sweden Democrats in addressing the issue.
On the economy, the successes have been, arguably, even greater. Although I say this slightly facetiously, there is a serious argument to be made that, over four years, the Swedish economy has been transformed into one more capitalist than that of the United States. Gone should be the days when Sweden is used as the archetype for the opposite. Gone are the days when Sweden was a socialist utopia.
Today, as a salaried employee in Sweden, your tax burden will also be the lowest it has been since 1975, while the amount you can invest in an ISK — Sweden’s (better) version of an ISA — has been doubled. And after all that, you do not pay a wealth tax on your success, nor will you be forced to give any of it away after you die, as Sweden has no inheritance tax.
Furthermore, it has become easier to start and scale a business in Sweden than almost anywhere else in the world. The scale of the Tidö government’s achievement in transforming Sweden into a vibrant and growing capital market was made clear when Verisure listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange rather than the LSE. It was the largest listing in Europe that year, and the company chose “socialist Sweden” over the UK.
However, the Swedish election will be decisive in determining whether this trajectory can continue. Ulf Kristersson’s government went to the polls on Sunday, fighting for re-election. Regardless of the result, which remains inconclusive, the scale of his achievement must be recognised. Centre-right governments today are often characterised as stale and slow to change; Sweden’s has been the opposite.
The achievements I have listed on migration and the economy alone sound like what would be a dream outcome for the Conservative Party should it return to Number 10. It is therefore vital that Kemi looks outward and reflects on success stories such as Sweden’s. Not every Swedish policy can, of course, be transplanted into the UK. But our sister party has a bloody good record to be jealous of, if nothing else — and sibling rivalry is always a good motivator for improvement.
As a Swede, I proudly voted for a movement I was confident would deliver a conservative agenda in Government. I hope to be able to do so soon again in this country. Perhaps Kemi could borrow one final line from her Swedish sister party: vi är på rätt väg — men vi är inte framme.