Danish Left Splits Nationalist, Ends 25 Year-Old Agreement

Speaking of big changes, immigration as a hot button issue and the new divide being between nationalists and globalists:

The Local: Social Democrats go it alone in break with allies over immigration

Denmark’s Social Democrats will not seek to form a coalition government with erstwhile ally the Social Liberal (Radikale Venstre) party in the event that the current opposition wins the next general election.

...Frederiksen’s decision breaks a 25-year old agreement between the two parties to go into government together.

...“I do not wish to be a the forefront of a Denmark that does not have immigration [udlændingepolitikken, ed.] under control,” Frederiksen said.

According to Jyllands-Posten’s report, Frederiksen sees strict immigration rules and the introduction of further, even stricter laws on migration as more important than any other political issue.

...Morten Østergaard, leader of the Social Liberal party, told the newspaper that his party would maintain its current position, including on immigration, where it wants a relaxation on some existing laws.

Frederiksen’s announcement does not change the Social Liberal line, Østergaard said.

The Social Liberal leader also suggested the move by Frederiksen was the first step in a potential alliance between the Social Democrats and anti-immigration populists the Danish People's Party (DF).

"What's going on, Mette? Did you just grant [DF leader] Kristian Thulesen Dahl a free pass to set (Denmark's political) course?", Østergaard wrote in a tweet.

I'm not fully up on Danish politics. A quick search turned this up on the Social Liberals:

Many Danes don’t want to admit, at least to you, that they vote for the Danish People’s Party. But a lot of people do – it’s the third biggest party in Denmark.
There is a party that wants you and wants your votes as a foreigner.

That’s Radikale Venstre (the Social Liberals) – the hip, entrepreneur party I mentioned before. They had a terrible ad campaign during the last election: “We trust people. Even foreigners.”

But their heart is in the right place. The Radikale have a multi-cultural team of candidates, and they do what they can to soften immigration restrictions, in part because their business supporters need the foreigners’ skills.

The right-wing won a coalition victory in 2015. Social Democrats are leading in the polling for this election and their coalition was leading before this move. On the one hand, the move threatens their coalition, but on the other, if it siphons off anti-immigration votes it could imperil the right-wing's chances of winning. Red is the left and blue the right in the first chart below. The red line in the second is Social Democrats, yellow is Danish People's Party and blue is Venstre, a conservative-liberal party.

Last month I posted polling data showing the top issue for voters in most countries is immigration. One of them was Denmark.

Under conditions of negative mood, there's a matrix for predicting which party is likely to gain seats in any country. First, is the party in or out of power? Second, is it nationalist? In Denmark, the left is out of power and the Social Democrats have signaled a nationalist turn. I predict they will gain in the polls shortly.