Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M) accuses the Social Democrats of wanting to force population mixing in their integration policy. Lawen Redar (S) rejects the claims as baseless and calls them political ridicule in SVT's 30 Minutes. She stresses that the party's proposals aim to break segregation without coercion.
At the Moderates' working conference, Ulf Kristersson (M) leveled sharp criticism against the Social Democrats' new integration policy. He claimed the party is set to realize its vision of mixing the population, not because citizens want it, but because the Social Democrats do. 'The population shall be mixed up. Not because they themselves want it, but because the Social Democrats want it,' said the prime minister.
The Social Democrats' integration policy spokesperson Lawen Redar reacted strongly in SVT's 30 Minutes. 'I think this is a level of political ridicule. I don't understand what the prime minister is expressing at all,' she said, arguing the criticism misses the point. Redar emphasized that the party's proposals contain no form of coercion. 'There is nothing in our proposals that involves any form of coercion,' she clarified.
The background is the Social Democrats' policy to break residential segregation through a mix of tenure forms in housing areas, such as rentals, condominiums, and villas. Redar also dismissed accusations of building rentals in villa areas: 'We have no such proposal. There are no proposals to build rental apartments in villa areas.' She highlighted that the opposite of mixing is segregation, which can lead to parallel societies, and that changes are needed in deprived areas to reduce socioeconomic divides.
Previously, the right has criticized similar statements, such as Gothenburg council chair Jonas Attenius (S)'s comment that the population needs to be mixed. A couple of years ago, Redar led a working group proposing larger-scale measures against segregation, but several ideas were toned down ahead of the party congress.
