Make places like Somerset take more migrants, Danish minister tells UK
Britain must ensure places like Somerset get their fair share of immigrants, a Danish minister overseeing radical immigration reforms has suggested.
Denmark’s employment minister, Kaare Dybvad Bek, who is part of the leading centre-left Social Democratic Party, said at an event in Westminster on Monday that he found it “interesting” that southern England lacked diversity while northern England did.
Mr Dybvad Bek said the separation was “fundamentally wrong”, adding: “This is different from ours. [Danish] culture. I also think some things are fundamentally wrong: separating towns and cities. I also think it is wrong to grant special rights based on ethnic or religious groups. “I think we need a society where everyone has the same rights.”
Reference to rural detective series Midsomer MurdersMr Dybvad Bek added: “I traveled around England with my family a few years ago and it’s very interesting that when you go to Somerset, Dorset and those areas, there are basically no people of foreign origin, but when you go to the North you have the majority of foreign origin. “As a Dane, I think it’s strange that you have such huge differences.
“Why not get people in Somerset involved in this mission for the nation?”
The center-left Social Democratic Party, which has been in power since 2019, has moved to the right on immigration while introducing progressive policies on climate and health issues. Home Affairs Minister Shabana Mahmood has sought to emulate their success with her own sweeping reforms of the asylum system and legal immigration.
The government’s strict new rules on who can settle permanently in the UK mirror Denmark, which imposes conditions as well as financial and language restrictions on benefit claimants.
Denmark has one of the toughest immigration systems in Europe and has also taken a tough approach to integration, with a law allowing the state to demolish apartment blocks in areas where at least half of the residents are from a “non-Western” background.
The so-called “Ghetto law” predates the Social Democrats’ rise to power, but Mr Dybvad Bek defended the radical approach in a speech at the Policy Exchange think tank.
He said “hostile” reinforced concrete sites aggravated people’s social problems and prevented integration into Danish culture. He explained: “We have an estate in our third largest city where approximately 9,000 people live in concrete buildings, 77 percent of whom come from non-Western countries and 52 percent of whom are unemployed.
“This doesn’t give people who grow up there the opportunity to understand Danish society, to understand how you live in Denmark, to understand social norms, to understand how to navigate our society. We want these areas to become more attractive to working and middle-class families.”
Mr Dybvad Bek said public housing was brought to wealthy areas so that different parts of Denmark took on “the burden of integrating people”. He warned against people living in areas “cut off from city centres”.
Denmark has reviewed migrants’ requests for asylum outside the country and held talks with the Rwandan government, but Mr Dybvad Bek said plans to set up an asylum center in East Africa had been rejected. He said his party was focusing instead on building those relationships with other European countries.
In a warning to left-wing parties across Europe, he said: “There is no other option for people who want to represent working-class communities… You also need to have democratic control over migration flows.” Mr Dybvad Bek added that public concerns about immigration “must be resolved by the centre-right and centre-left, otherwise we will all end up with populist governments at some point”.
He added that 95 percent of migrant returns in Denmark are voluntary, and asylum seekers who cannot seek asylum are given cash grants to support their departure.
